


The Darkest Corner (Of My Heart)

by NecromanticNoir



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark, Dubious Consent, Fetish, Fisting, M/M, Mental Institutions, Mpreg, Object Penetration, Out of Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-02
Updated: 2013-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-03 06:56:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1067414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NecromanticNoir/pseuds/NecromanticNoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snape has gone feral, but what caused it, and how will Harry cope now that his once impotent and repressed partner is suddenly all for giving in to his more… primal urges?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Darkest Corner (Of My Heart)

  
The Darkest Corner by [necromanticnoir](viewuser.php?uid=3411)  


  
Summary: Snape has gone feral, but what caused it, and how will Harry cope now that his once impotent and repressed partner is suddenly all for giving in to his more… primal urges?  
Categories: Fanfiction Characters:  Arthur Weasley, Draco Malfoy, Fred Weasley, Ginny Weasley, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Molly Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Ron Weasley, Severus Snape  
Genres:  Drama, First Time, Romance  
Spoilers:  None  
Warnings:  Ambiguous Consent, Crack!, Fetish/Kink, Fisting, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Illness, Mpreg, Object Penetration, Out of Character, Rimming, Violence/Torture  
Challenges: None  
Series: None  
Chapters:  1 Completed: Yes  
Word count: 30929 Read: 14243  
Published: Aug 24, 2010 Updated: Feb 24, 2011 

Story Notes:

This story was my entry for the Severus Sighs Grand Challenge 2010. The events of this story take place between November 1998 and September 1999 and follow in chronological order unless otherwise stated. Where the story occasionally moves back and forth in time, the dates are included for your convenience. DH compliant (not the epilogue); Harry has returned to Hogwarts for his eighth year and is over 18. I wish to add warnings for animalistic sex, mud during intercourse, possible mpreg and Lily!Obsessed Snape.

Enormous thanks and praise go to my beta, my friend H, for standing in at the last minute, you are an angel. Thank you also to RaeWhit for the amazing help she gave me, going through the entire story, and to Accioslash for reccing and making me feel so welcome, yet again!

Chapter 1 by necromanticnoir

**THE DARKEST CORNER**

‘ _Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a strait waistcoat – your grasp, even in fury would be a charm to me… I could hang over you with untiring tenderness, though you have me no smile in return; and never weary of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of recognition for me_.’

_Jane Eyre_ by Charlotte Brontë

‘ _She has no mouth with which to kiss, no hands with which to caress, only the fangs and talons of a beast of prey_.’

_The Lady of the House of Love_ by Angela Carter.

 

**April 17th, 1999**

There was no privacy here. Worse, there was a window.

Who puts a window in a cupboard?

People passing in the starched corridor could peer in; a crowd was forming. The window might as well have been _barred_.

Harry longed to be able to sit in the waiting room with the other relatives, but it was just impossible. The crowds followed him wherever he went. So he ended up stuck in the oppressive heat of the medical cupboard, collected alongside the dusty bottles and assortments of medical grotesqueries.

Harry could see the headlines now: ‘Precious Potter too posh to wait with the plebs.’

Melancholy swirled about him like mist. He could barely see the awed faces as they peered in, gawping as though he were some exotic creature. When one woman beamed, Harry actually _hissed_ at her. Her shocked face recoiled.

‘You’d be an animal too, if you were trapped in this fame and caged in it like a zoo.’

An hour later, a mediwitch fought her way through the mob and nervously told him that, considering the severity of the accident, Harry’s lover was beyond their reach to save.

It had all started, Harry reflected sadly, with The Moment.

 

**November 30th, 1998 – The Moment**

Snape staggered away from Harry, righting himself against a chair, panting.

Harry remained frozen to the spot. That very point on the carpet; he would always remember it. The carpet itself was even a little worn under his feet, as though it wanted to herald the exact place where he had finally summoned up enough courage to –

Snape’s head snapped up.

He looked… delighted, but not in the way Harry had hoped. Snape’s body seemed to bristle with vitriolic glee – the sight of him, smirking regally from behind the headmaster’s desk, made Harry want to curl inwards, terrified. He stood there bravely, hands balled into fists in the pockets of his school robe.

Waiting to see what Snape would do next.

_You’ve got this far. It may yet go well. It may yet be alright…_

“So,” Snape hissed, and his voice dripped with a satisfaction heady as honey, “ _this_ is the moment.”

“Moment? What moment?” Harry whispered, hoarse.

“That delicious moment I have been anticipating your entire school career, Potter. The moment of your expulsion.”

“My… _what?_ ” Harry croaked out. He felt as though he had been plunged underwater; time, and sound, slowed. His heart began to flutter wildly in his chest, but even that sounded dull and far away.

“Your expulsion,” Snape repeated, his upper lip curling in an almost erotic maliciousness as he settled himself into his chair. He steepled his thin fingers, savouring Harry’s reaction.

“You’re expelling me? _Why?_ ” Harry cried, glancing about wildly for something to lean against, some support, but finding himself bereft.

“Let me see,” Snape said silkily, tapping one finger thoughtfully against his gaunt cheek, “ _sexual molestation of a member of the faculty_ ought to do it, don’t you think? Or should I call it harassment – which sounds better to you, Potter?”

“You’re going to expel me because I k… You can’t!” Harry gasped, but Snape’s black eyes glittered cruelly.

“I _can_. There is no Dumbledore for you to run to now, Potter. This is my school.”

“But… I… what do I do now? D-do I go to Auror training? Are you going to –”

“It remains to be seen whether Kingsley will still let a degenerate such as yourself onto his programme. He does not, after all, require you to finish your schooling.”

The horror at what he had done only now starting to creep up on him, Harry scrubbed his hands over his face. _Snape called it molestation. Snape hated it. Why the hell did you do it, you stupid, stupid_ –

“However,” Snape continued, “once I make it perfectly clear to him that you returned to school out of a misplaced infatuation with myself, and allowed your crazed obsession to lead you to stalking me in the school corridors, ending with an unprincipled and vicious assault upon my person in my own office… He may start to see things a little differently…”

“It wasn’t assault!” Harry gritted out. He staggered across the room and sank, in despair, into the padded chair opposite Snape’s desk. Ripping his glasses off, he pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes until he saw strange kaleidoscopic patterns.

“No?” Snape raised an eyebrow. “Did you have my permission to inflict your disgusting attentions upon me?”

“No,” Harry breathed, “but it wasn’t… wasn’t disgusting… Please, I’m so sorry; I should have known you wouldn’t…”

He sobered.

_Of course you knew. He hates you. It really is that simple. You gambled, Potter. You lost_.

“I’ll take the consequences of my actions,” he said, sitting up gravely. If he was to leave, the last impression he wished Snape to have was of Harry taking his punishment like a man; not like a shrieking child.

“At the very _least_ , did it not occur to you that after eight years of mutual loathing, I would not be amenable to having your filthy mouth _forced_ –” Snape continued, surprised by Harry’s complicity and clearly not ready to stop berating him yet – but Harry cut him short.

“About the… loathing,” Harry mumbled, shifting about miserably in his chair, “there’s something I think you should know. Well, you’ve probably guessed already, what with the… mouths thing.”

Snape’s eyes widened.

“This is going to be good,” he spat, acerbic. “I can _feel_ it.”

Harry blushed, distraught. _Tell him the truth, it can’t be any worse than what he’s going to do to you anyway_ …

“Ever since I watched your memories in Dumbledore’s Pensieve, I realised all that you’d been doing, the risks you took; the sacrifices you made, the danger you put yourself in…”

“I’m not interested in your thanks,” Snape growled, waving his hand dismissively.

“It’s not, well, I _do_ need to thank you, but it’s more than that. You were so brave and, um… you didn’t have to do any of what you did – you could have backed out at any time, but you stayed. For my mum. You were so constant, so true; so honourable, even when you must have been terrified, and I…”

“You… what?” Snape said smokily, evidently amused. “I suppose you fell madly, irresistibly in love with me?”

Harry blushed red, reduced to mumbling and plucking at the hem of his robe.

Snape paled. He went so pale he looked almost _dead_.

“ _What?_ ” he hissed. “WHAT?”

“I know,” Harry said, mournfully.

“You do realise this is the most ridiculous thing anyone has ever said to me?” Snape demanded, regarding Harry with incredulity.

“I think it’s up there with the most ridiculous things I’ve ever said,” Harry muttered, “but that doesn’t mean it’s not true,” he added, passionately. “I never meant to kiss you like that, without your permission – you _have_ to believe me –”

Snape stood. Turning away from Harry, he crossed to the window and looked out, in silence. He gazed through the glass and, seemingly, straight into the past.

“You must try to find another outlet for your affections,” Snape said gravely, at last. “Mine are… held.”

Harry nodded, forlorn.

“My mum,” he muttered, more to himself than to Snape.

“Indeed.”

Snape was still looking out of the window. He seemed… calmed, suddenly. As though mention of Harry’s mother, or of his love for her, soothed his soul.

“But she’s… dead,” Harry whispered, but even as he spoke the words, he knew it was hopeless.

Snape sighed. He looked bone-weary.

“It’s okay,” Harry lied. “I… I was expecting this.”

“Were you?” Snape muttered.

“I… yeah. I already knew my… love for you was doomed.” He winced, but forced himself to say it. Snape had to know what he was rejecting.

“Perhaps,” Snape added, softly, flinching at Harry’s use of the word, “you merely became… _interested_ because you knew it was impossible. Now you have been,” he paused, and Harry had the odd realisation that Snape was trying to let him down gently, “denied… perhaps you can forget about it.”

“I don’t think it’s quite that simple, but… I’ll try,” Harry said, uncertainly.

_It’s certainly going to be easier, not being around him anymore. Although where on earth do I go now?_

“It does explain why you would come to feel for a man who was so obviously not available to you,” Snape said, seriously, as though he had not heard Harry. “The safe option.”

“You don’t think I’d have gone through with it?” Harry demanded. He leapt from the chair. “You think if you’d said you returned my feelings, then I’d have run a mile? I love you – I kissed you!” he growled, fists clenched. “I’ve seen you at your worst, and your best, and I’ve never been so… consumed with whatever this is, but you look at me and it’s like you’ve hit me with lightning – it _burns_ , Professor, it –”

“I remember,” Snape interrupted, quietly, “what love feels like.”

Harry wanted to kick something; to cling to Snape desperately... He wished Snape would open the window; he desperately needed some air, before his insides started clawing their way despairingly out of his mouth… Was this what Snape had felt about his mother, all those years ago? He imagined having to watch Snape marry and have children with someone else, as Snape had been forced to do with Harry’s mother…

He wanted to be sick.

“I have to go now,” he blurted, casting about wildly for the door – but Snape had his hand on his shoulder then, and Harry felt the older man’s touch brand him to his core, even through his clothing.

_I am yours_.

“It will pass,” Snape muttered, but he did not look entirely convinced. Harry let out a bitter, pained bark of a laugh.

“So says the man who’s spent his entire life in love with the same woman!”

“Do not… let rejection make you do anything stupid,” Snape said suddenly.

“What, like enslaving myself to any dark lords?” Harry spat, indignant. “I know that was why you did it. You didn’t take rejection well, either.”

Snape pulled his hand away, scowling.

“Yes,” he snapped. “I wanted the power to impress her, to prove to her I was more worthy than your idiot father. But it did me no good,” Snape added, darkly. “Go back and soothe your ego. Marry a couple of Weasleys.”

“My ego? I’m not sure it will ever recover,” Harry laughed, sorely, “from being turned down for my dead mother.”

“I must say,” Snape sneered, “you are taking rejection with the grace and poise I would expect of a Potter. What an evening it is for you, Potter – rejected and expelled.”

That stung. Harry had been being so mature (or so he’d hoped) up to now.

“Fuck you,” Harry hissed, desperately.

“Don’t you wish I would?” Snape spat, eyes gleaming maliciously. “You’d like that, I suppose?”

“Yes,” Harry snarled. “Of course I bloody would.”

“Have you ever even _had_ sex?” Snape smirked, lip curling. Almost… _leering_ at him.

“No,” Harry retorted. “But wait, this question comes from a man who’s been in love with a corpse for twenty years – have _you_? Or was no-one else ever _dead enough_ for you?”

He knew he had gone too far, and was just taking pot-shots in the dark like a stupid teenager.

“How dare you,” Snape whispered, horrified, “refer to my Lily in that coarse, disgusting –”

“She’s not your bloody Lily – she’s my dad’s, she’s _mine_! She hated you, and then you killed her!” Harry yelled, and maturity fluttered out of the window in ten words.

Snape’s eyes blazed. Teeth bared, he fumbled for his wand – could not find it – then gave up, and punched Harry, hard.

Harry stumbled back, reeling, stars exploding in front of his eyes. He coughed and, to his shock, sprayed blood all over the office floor. He patted his pockets blindly for his own wand, preparing to fend off another attack.

Snape, however, seemed to have regained his composure.

“Leave,” he said, regarding Harry coldly. He strode past Harry. “Leave _now_.”

“Do you think,” Harry gasped out, as he staggered after Snape to the door, “that you would have been this obsessed with her if she hadn’t died? Do you think it’s a guilt thing?”

“No,” Snape said, opening the door sharply. “I think it’s a deep, powerful and passionate love _thing_. Now pack your things and get out of my school – I want you gone by morning.”

 

**April 18th, 1999**

It must have been morning. It was hard to tell in the cupboard.

Harry stretched out stiff and drowsy limbs and listened to his twisted back and collarbone i>pop, then shook himself.

“Tell me again, so I understand,” he frowned, groping for his glasses. He was curled up on the floor, bundled in an itchy tartan blanket that Ron had brought from the Burrow.

How long had he been in here, now? He wanted to be beside his boyfriend, but that was impossible, owing to the nature of the man’s… affliction. Sliding his glasses onto his face, he blinked up at the two mediwitches standing over him.

“We can let the curse take its course, accelerate it,” one repeated.

“Accelerate…” Harry repeated, dumbly. “As in, make it worse?”

“It will kill him as it is,” the second repeated, stern. “We need to do something.”

“What if _that_ kills him?” Harry demanded. The two witches glanced at each other.

“Does Mr Potter have the authority to make that decision?” said the other, dubiously. “He is hardly family.”

“He doesn’t have family – _I’m_ his family,” Harry ground out. “I’m his _partner_. I’m the one who’ll have to look after him!”

“So, what do we do?” he was asked.

Harry put his head in his hands.

“Make it worse. If it’s the only way.”

He only hoped the man would live to forgive him.

 

**January 5th, 1999**

Harry looked gloomily around his little flat, dumping his bag upon the carpet. As soon as he closed the door, the flat seemed to shrink around him, until it was almost unbearable.

He was used to the closeness; he had spent eleven years sleeping in a cupboard, after all. But what really got him was the _silence_. Hogwarts was never silent. He almost wished he’d taken that flat by the railway line, now.

The silence… hurt.

_What a way to start the new year_.

His Auror training did not start until March or April; he had missed the first intake. He had written to Snape to ask for a temporary job reference, but the reply he received said that, if Harry directed anyone Snape’s way, he’d tell them Harry was: _the worst felon I ever had the misfortune to encounter_.

_He hates you_. That hurt too, painfully bright; an open wound.

~

Four hours later, Harry wondered whether it was possible to die from silence. He let the air rush out of the plastic armchair he was blowing up (50p for a chair, bless those Muggle charity shops), but the noise seemed unnaturally loud here. He sighed; he needed to buy a radio, or a television. Or learn one of those charms where you could make inanimate objects sing lewd songs.

He’d already been out, wandering listlessly around second-hand shops in Muggle London, hands in his pockets and head down. The storm over his expulsion still had not blown over, a month on. Snape was being vilified in the press; nobody could accept that Snape, the reinstated Headmaster only weeks out of prison, had the power to expel The Saviour.

It would have been too easy for Snape to tell them his reason, but he had not. _Unacceptable behaviour_ , was all he had said. As much as Harry wanted to detest Snape now, he found he could not. Not when the man was being so disgustingly noble.

He had just discovered that his second-hand inflatable armchair (the only furniture in his cell-like sitting room so far) had a hole in it somewhere, when –

_Whoosh!_

Harry turned, puzzled, his lips still wrapped around the nozzle to blow the blasted chair up. His eyes widened.

Snape was standing before his fireplace, covered in soot and scowling.

“Can’t you bloody clean this out?” he snapped, dusting ash from his sharply-polished black shoes.

Evidently Harry looked like he was up to no good.

“What is _that_?” Snape demanded, glowering at the sagging inflatable chair. “Have I caught you in the midst of some seedy sexual experiment?”

Blushing, Harry flung the chair away. It made a rude noise as it deflated.

“What do you want?” Harry asked, getting to his feet. Now that Snape was here, the room felt ten times smaller, and Harry was blazing hot and awkward. “Not feeling quite smug enough today, are we, so you thought you’d come and gloat?” he spluttered.

Snape took in the cramped space with his sweeping black gaze, his upper lip curling disdainfully.

“I don’t like your new flat,” he decreed.

“I’ve only lived here four hours!” Harry protested, impatiently. “What do you _want_?”

“Ah…” Snape glanced about, wildly. “Aren’t you going to offer me hospitalit… No,” he sniffed, as Harry folded his arms.

Fingers clenching and unclenching against his palms, Snape looked _pained_. Harry could not help wondering if something terrible had happened to Ron, or Hermione –

Snape swallowed, hard.

“Potter,” he said, with difficulty, “perhaps I was a little _hasty_ , the other night, when I – I’m not offering you your place at the school back, by the way,” Snape interrupted himself, archly. “But… I must admit to being… curious. I have never experienced the love of… I should; I cannot…” His confession thinned to nothing, frustration furrowing his brow.

“What are you asking for?” Harry demanded, incredulity building inside him like one of those geysers of rushing hot water he’d seen on the telly. “Are you trying to get a _shag_? What the hell do you mean, _curious_? I think you’ll find, _Headmaster_ , that being expelled, ridiculed in the newspapers and made homeless are not on my list of _things that make me very aroused_!” And he glared at Snape with vitriol. “I can just imagine you in your office: Oh, the boy loves me – perhaps he’ll roll over and spread his –”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Snape interrupted, cheeks raw with humiliation. “I am not interested in that, not in the least.”

“What do you _want_ , then?” Harry challenged.

“I don’t know!” Snape yelled at him. “But I find myself incapable of working – or functioning like a normal human being – and I am coming to the realisation that it is _your fault_! Have you cursed me, is that what this is?”

“I’m sorry,” Harry snapped, “have you now claimed to be interested purely out of curiosity and _then_ accused me of cursing you? GET OUT!”

Snape span on his heel, looking disgusted – then made an abortive movement and turned back, fists clenched.

“You still have the bruise on your face,” he said, quietly.

“Yes,” Harry hissed, thrumming with anger, “it won’t heal.”

“I leave marks on you that won’t heal?” Snape scoffed, scornful. Disbelieving.

“Yes,” Harry said, significantly. “What do you think that says about us? Just go,” he added, sickened.

He watched Snape turn away, shoulders bowed. He would take Harry’s heart with him, when he left–

“I made a mistake!” Snape blurted, suddenly.

He looked terrified.

Harry blinked.

Paused, hope blossoming in his chest.

“You… _what_?”

 

**June 9th, 1999**

Harry peered gravely through the darkened window, his arms hugging his thin waist.

On the other side lay a monster, a beast.

A thing with no humanity, no spark of compassion, no rationality.

A cruel, base _creature_ …

Snape lifted his poor, wild head.

His black hair flowed over his face like rain, through which two dark eyes glittered like beetles.

Harry saw a flash of teeth as Snape’s lips drew back on a snarl, and a deep coldness shuddered through him.

He stepped forward, pressing himself mournfully, almost sensuously against the glass, as one would press against a lover. The pane was tinted so that Snape saw nothing from the other side.

“He is quite hideous, isn’t he?”

Harry turned. Draco Malfoy stood, preening, revelling in the tortured look on Harry’s lean face. Swaggering, he crossed the room, yet Harry noticed a spark of fear in the young man’s eyes, as though all Malfoy’s confidence were ready to topple with one breath, tumbling like a pack of cards…

Harry pursed his lips as Draco strutted into the room and joined him beside the glass.

“Why are you here?” he ground out. “Shouldn’t you be at _school_?”

“My new friends, _Ron and Hermione_ , invited me here - they know how much I admired Professor Snape,” Malfoy sneered. "What are you going to do now?” he murmured, low, as they watched Snape gnaw lazily at his own wrist. “It’s been three weeks, is he still –”

Instead of answering, Harry leant over to a button in the wall and pressed it. A loud, violent burp of noise blasted into the room, making Snape surge up from the floor in alarm, eyes wild. Draco let out a screech; then turned on Harry, blustering.

“He’s doing it again,” Harry muttered, by way of explanation. “He’s not supposed to bite the skin, it’ll get infected.”

“So he’s being trained?” Malfoy asked, brows raised in amusement. Harry shrugged.

“I suppose.”

“What caused it, do they know?” the young man asked.

Harry scowled.

“Look, are you here for some purpose? As to what I’ll do, there’s no choice. Look after him,” he snapped.

“May I be the first –”

“You won’t be the first, you’ll be the last. Everybody thinks I shouldn’t keep him. I know,” Harry said, resentment sparkling in his luminously green eyes.

“You’re not seriously thinking of keeping a wild animal in that dump of a flat you’ve got?” the blond demanded. “It’s madness – he’ll kill you within a week!”

 

**January 11th, 1999** 000

Snape looked murderous as he stepped out of Harry’s Floo.

Harry stood, cautiously, in the doorway to his tiny kitchen.

Snape had been forced to return to Hogwarts before they could talk properly last time. This was the first time Harry had seen him since Snape had confessed… whatever it was.

Harry had been driving himself insane with it ever since. He needed to talk to Snape, but the Headmaster was always so bloody busy… A week had passed; a week of torture, to Harry’s mind.

Snape looked just as worse for wear as Harry felt.

“Hi,” Harry said, shyly – then jumped as Snape thrust a bottle of wine into his hands. Snape’s gaze was hot; penetrating.

Fumbling; hands too heavy, he put Snape’s wine in the fridge and then turned, to find Snape standing immediately behind him.

“Are you trying to be provocative?” Snape asked, gruffly. He was very close now, and was staring down at Harry intently.

“Me?” Harry breathed. “No. I was only putting the wine in the fridge, do you find that –”

When Harry remained fixed to the spot – transfixed – Snape put one hand hesitantly on Harry’s hip.

“What is this?” Harry whispered, so intoxicated by the nearness of Snape that he forgot to be indignant that this man should expel him for wanting affection, then come seek him out for it –

“I have gone mad,” Snape replied, softly, then he gently tipped Harry’s chin up, and covered Harry’s mouth with his own.

~

“I feel like I ought to throw you out, now,” Harry said, smiling slightly, when Snape finally pulled away.

“Don’t,” Snape replied, simply, and kissed him again.

~

“You didn’t,” Harry said, when he was allowed the use of his mouth back once more, “just decide that I was the closest you were going to get to Lily, did you? Because if that’s the case –”

“Stupid boy,” Snape said, almost fondly, and bent his head for another kiss – but Harry pulled away, wobbling slightly.

“Then explain it to me so I don’t feel like you’re taking advantage. You were horrified by my confession only a month ago. What changed?”

Snape leant against the wall, rubbing his palm over his face.

“I… I was not aware of the possibility of… this,” he waved his hand abstractly at Harry, “before a month ago. I reacted… more extremely than, upon reflection, I ought…”

“You want me because you’ve only just realised you could have me?” Harry asked, eyes widening. “Thanks. That’s hardly the love declaration of the year.”

“That is not it,” Snape ground out, regarding Harry frostily. “Do not say it like that – this is terrifying, and that sounds…”

“Crap,” Harry agreed, leaning against the sink. “I think you should come back another time, and try harder.”

~

To Harry’s amazement, Snape returned not two hours later, whilst Harry was brushing his teeth.

He paused, toothbrush sticking out of his mouth and his hair in a mess, his too-large pyjama top teetering off one shoulder – then nearly choked as Snape strode across the room rigidly and thrust a clumsy piece of paper into his hands.

He opened it out. There, in Snape’s cramped, spidery script, was written:

_I keep you in the darkest corner of my heart_.

Harry looked up at Snape, questioningly. Snape was stood there, breathing hard, as though he had been _running_ around Hogwarts in his quest for the right words.

He looked at Harry almost desperately, a wild look in his eyes; petrified, perhaps, lest Harry should mock him…

“I’m not sure I understand,” Harry said, carefully, edging towards Snape; aching to be in his arms. “But it’ll do for starters, I suppose.”

~

It was awkward; they gravitated towards each other like two lonely planets, but Harry still had the toothbrush sticking out of his mouth.

Snape ran his knuckles gently over Harry’s cheek, and Harry’s skin prickled, crisping like paper.

He darted out of the room, rinsed his mouth out, and ran back – to find Snape almost trembling in the centre of his sitting room.

They flew at each other this time; Harry plunged his fingers in between the strands of Snape’s greasy hair and opened his mouth, willing to be conquered. Consumed with passion, their bodies met roughly, almost knocking Harry off balance. He clung to Snape desperately.

They did not speak for many minutes.

~

It was all going so well; Harry’s head swam with dizzy bliss.

But then… he tried to undress Snape.

After that, it was a nightmare.

They had been kissing for an age, panting and groaning and licking each other’s faces. Snape made the most incredible guttural noises – each time he moaned, Harry felt the moan vibrate straight to his cock; a rough, wet tongue on his hot flesh…

Harry was flushed and horny – and it was obvious that Snape was, too.

For God’s sake, Snape already had his bloody hands shoved down the back of Harry’s pyjama bottoms, and was groping Harry’s bare arse with his long, sharp fingers, so why on _earth_ …

Snape still wore his black frock coat – it was unbearable to Harry, who wanted to feel Snape’s skin sliding against his own. Harry lifted his fingers shakily to the buttons of Snape’s collar…

“ _No_!” Snape barked, backing up so abruptly that Harry almost collapsed; a limp vine.

“No?” Harry groaned, returning to Snape again, as though he were on a piece of elastic. “What’s wrong?”

Snape shoved him off. Harry ended up sprawled on the carpet.

Snape span away, looking slightly feral. His mouth was damp from kissing and his hair awry. He looked so… _undone_. Harry was instantly smitten.

“Is it… are you self-conscious about the scarring?” Harry asked delicately, from the floor. He had not even seen Snape’s neck yet, but he knew there must be scarring. But Snape had no need of shame; Harry was electrified sexually by him. Snape stared at him as though they had both run mad.

“What am I _doing_?” he hissed. “What would she say if she saw me –”

“Who?” Harry asked, clambering back up and reaching for his lover.

In the next moment he knew.

His hand faltered; the movement stuttered.

“What would she… _Off me, now_ , you brute!” Snape snarled, shoving at Harry again – but Harry clawed him back, pulling off his own top and throwing himself at Snape, like a mourner.

“It wasn’t like you two were ever pledged to each other,” Harry said plaintively, needy and frantic, showering Snape’s aghast face with kisses. “She has no hold over you! If she was truly your friend, she’d want you to take pleasure in me –”

“Do you really expect me to insult her memory by being unfaithful to her with her only son?” Snape demanded, angrily.

“ _You_ kissed me!” Harry reminded him. “And it’s hardly being unfaithful.”

“I cannot know you in that way!” Snape shrieked, looking almost demented. “You are her son!”

“But I’m still me!” Harry cried, in desperation. “I’m Harry – stop seeing me in terms of how I’m related to other people! Lily’s eyes, James’ hair – what about _my_ bloody attributes! You must see qualities in me that they didn’t have, surely?”

Snape tore himself out of Harry’s thrashing embrace; cloth ripped.

“Lily is –”

“She’s dead!” Harry yelled after him. “And I bet she’d have _wanted_ her son to get a bit of a shag for once!”

“ _Shut up, James_!” Snape screamed – then paled. Horror trickled along Harry’s veins like the crackling of ice spreading across a pond.

“WHAT?” he howled, lunging at Snape, who was making a beeline for the fireplace, his clothing torn and his hair snarled. “WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME? YOU DON’T EVEN RECOGNISE ME! HOW DA – WHERE ARE YOU GOING? DON’T LEAVE ME, YOU COWARD –”

But Snape had run away.

 

**June 10th, 1999**

“No, don’t you do it – Harry!” Hermione wailed, as Harry flung open the door.

Draco Malfoy’s parting shot ringing in his ears, (“He’ll kill you in a week!”) Harry braced himself and stepped through, willing to take whatever happened.

If Snape, gone feral, turned on Harry and killed him, it would at least put an end to Harry’s misery.

“Harry!” Hermione pleaded, plucking feebly at his shirt with her fingers. “He’s mad! At least take your wand! He’ll hurt you – oh, no!”

Snape had turned.

Teeth bared, savage, he looked at Harry.

Harry stood there bravely in the doorway, wandless, shaking and staring at the floor but so determined, feeling so alone –

He risked a heavy-lidded glance upwards. Snape was looking at him very strangely, almost calculatingly, as though trying to decide whether to strike. Harry willed down the terror that surged like bile up into his throat and shuffled into the room, kicking the door closed.

_Do whatever you want. I love you enough to let you kill me_.

“H-hey,” he choked out, trying to dredge up a smile, for all his face ached. “Severus? Do you remember me?”

He trailed off as Snape pushed off from the wall and, ever so slowly, began to circle him. Harry stayed perfectly still, his heart pounding.

Snape walked around him, expression stormy, and Harry closed his eyes. All he could hear were Snape’s irregular footsteps and his breathing – and his own heart, a terrified bird fluttering in his chest that sensed the presence of a monster…

Snape came closer, and Harry almost felt that Snape could smell his fear.

_Prey upon me. I am yours_.

Stood behind Harry, Snape growled. Harry nearly crawled out of his own skin.

He turned, and opened his eyes –in time to see Snape open his mouth and charge at him, teeth set, violent like a shark, as though to take a chunk out of him –

Harry cried out, and staggered backwards.

Their eyes met.

Everything happened very quickly after that.

Snape froze at the sight of Harry’s eyes, and pulled himself back.

Then, in the next moment, he lunged for Harry again, burying his face in Harry’s throat, and Harry wailed and waited for the inevitable pain when Snape’s teeth would bite into his neck and the blood would start to spurt, hot and thick –

There was a bang as the door crashed open.

A spell hurtled across the room, but Harry barely noticed it, as he was lifted bodily and thrown onto the bed. Snape hurtled after him, placing his own body between Harry and the intruders.

Hermione stood in the doorway, face white and wand drawn.

“Harry!” she shrieked.

Dazed, Harry tried to sit up, patting his neck with his hand – and found it dry.

“I’m okay, Hermione!” he called, struggling a little (Snape was still on top of him). Snape snarled and held him down.

“What’s he done to you?” Hermione hissed.

“Erm, nothing!” Harry said, in confusion. He wriggled away from Snape and sat up.

Snape positioned himself suspiciously – protectively – between Harry and the door. Harry tried to rise and go around him, but Snape glowered at him and pulled him back, hissing at Hermione sorely.

“What’s he doing?” Hermione asked.

“I think… I think he’s trying to protect me,” Harry ventured, as Snape slipped a possessive arm about his waist.

Snape pinned Harry to his side, eyes darting about as though to search for a way of escape.

“Lower your wand, Hermione,” Harry whispered, cautiously.

Snape wrapped his other arm about Harry, clutching the younger man to him as though Harry were his favourite, if slightly confused, teddy bear.

Understanding dawned on Hermione’s face.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, curiously, to Snape. “I’m not going to take him away from you,” and she lowered her wand, slipping it into her pocket in wonder.

~

“We think – and we have no clue how this can have happened – that the Professor has somehow imprinted upon Harry as his mate,” the mediwitch ventured, speaking into a microphone from the safety of the adjoining room.  
Harry beamed from inside Snape’s chamber ( _in the lair of the beast_ , he thought) and stroked Snape’s hair gently.

“I knew we had a connection, for all he was so, er, repressed,” he smiled.

Snape snorted at Harry’s attempts to stroke him and captured Harry’s fingers, shoving them back under the blanket. Harry’s smile widened and he clung to Snape fiercely.

“How on earth he can have remembered his previous attachment to Harry is… well, impossible,” the witch continued. “But it is, doubtless, very fortunate. It puts you, Mr Potter, in the position to be able to work out how you want him to be cared for.”

“I’ll do it,” Harry said, instantly, sitting up.

Snape sat up behind him and began nosing at his neck.

“Are you sure that’s wise, Harry?” Hermione said, into the microphone, tightening her grip on Ron’s hand.

Harry sniffed, unimpressed.

“He’s always been difficult, Hermione,” he said, coldly. “I thought all Gryffindors were supposed to be loyal – I’m not leaving him alone, and that’s final.”

 

**January 15th, 1999**

Harry had barely a few seconds’ warning before it happened.

He was sat grouchily at his kitchen table, and Hedwig II (Harry still missed her) had just dropped the evening’s _Prophet_ onto Harry’s head in a flurry of black feathers, when –

‘SNAPE GONE!’ screamed the headline. There was a picture of Hogwarts. Harry straightened up.

In the next moment, the fireplace flared. Harry dashed through, clutching the newspaper – and Snape stepped through.

“What _happened_?” Harry asked, rustling his newspaper at Snape. Snape squinted at it – then scowled.

“So you know,” he said, grimly. “Wait a moment – I must get my things.”

“Pardon?” Harry boggled.

“I… my _things_!” Snape sneered.

“Your things? Sex things? Or -”

Snape rolled his eyes and strode back into the fireplace.

“What the hell?” Harry whispered. He wandered back into the kitchen, unrolling the _Prophet_ across the table in the hope of finding some clue as to Snape’s strange behaviour – but the paper knew no more than he.

Soon, he heard the familiar _whoosh_ of the Floo – and darted into the living room to discover Snape, standing petulantly on the mat before the fireplace and holding a large carpet bag in each hand.

“You… You’re… Are those all your possessi…” Harry floundered.

“Yes, Harry,” Snape said, exasperatedly.

“You remembered my name, then,” Harry groused. “What exactly is… This isn’t you moving _in_ , is it?”

_Snape’s left Hogwarts; left his job, and his home… to come and live with me?_

“People usually discuss this sort of thing first,” he said, weakly.

“I cannot return now – I _have_ quit,” Snape said accusingly, as though his actions were all Harry’s fault.

“You quit your job?” Harry gulped. “Why?”

Snape looked frustrated again.

“I realised,” he said, condescendingly, “that I could not cling to the past and also do… this, with you. So I made a decision. I suppose now, after the disaster the other day, you are going to tell me that you have changed your mind?”

“I never asked you to move in at all!” Harry remonstrated. “God, you’re just a nightmare!”

Snape’s lip curled unpleasantly.

“I see,” he said, coldly, turning back to the fireplace, his back ramrod straight. Trying to cling to the last shreds of his tattered dignity.

“Wait!” Harry cried, darting after him. “You’re here _now_. Put your stuff down, for God’s sake!”

 

**June 23rd, 1999**

Harry looked around the neatly clipped lawns and perfectly-edged borders. It was sterile, austere – and unnaturally _green_ , as though someone had turned up the colour volume ridiculously high.

St. Shrivelling, the specialist Curse hospital, was a rambling white building, surrounded by a moat of garden. It was with a heavy heart that Harry had made the appointment; his friends had been steadily chipping away at his confidence for the past fortnight, as he prepared his home to bring his feral lover into it.

The last straw had come the other day, when a team of witches had come to assess Harry’s flat for safety issues. It was only then, as he was faced with the enormous list of alterations that needed making, that the full import of what he’d proposed to do had hit him – and it was overwhelming.

“It’s the best thing for him,” Hermione had said, gently, “to be in a specialist place until he’s better.”

“We just think it’s too much to manage on your own,” Ron had added, “but that’s no reflection on you, you’d do great. But you’re not trained.”

“He’ll kill you within a week,” said Malfoy (the bastard).

Harry felt like an anxious parent. He flipped through the hospital brochure, turning the clicking pages in measured silence.

“What’s your policy on drugs?” Harry asked, stopping at the page headed ‘Medication’. “I mean, everyone seems so calm. Is this… your doing, or is everyone –”

“We assess each individual on a case-by-case basis,” said his guide; Harry suspected he’d been given the manager (who seemed to know nothing of the care itself) because of who he was, and this irked him right from the off. “Obviously, I’m not a mediwizard, but I’m sure that they’ll only prescribe a course of potions if they feel it’s not to his detriment.”

Harry surreptitiously tried to sneak a look at the list of questions Hermione had written for him. He’d stuffed it in his pocket and now it was all wrinkled.

“Do you have any other patients like my… that are feral?” he whispered.

“We have a wide range of cases here, of differing severities – madness is very common. I understand your friend’s case is unusual – a rare curse, was it? We have separate rooms for all our patients, so that they have a safe environment – would you like to see inside one?”

“Please,” Harry said. “So, this safe environment – is he locked up all the time? Erm, cut off from people?”

“Obviously we’d have to assess the level of risk, but some of our patients take walks in the grounds. You can even visit him. On a Sunday,” the manager added.

~

“Severus?” Harry whispered. “You’ve got to let me go, you’ll be happy here –”

Snape clutched at him, eyes twitching around the white room, his skin as bloodless as the walls.

“He doesn’t want to let me leave,” Harry moaned, flailing in Snape’s grasp like a netted fish, smoothing his hands tenderly over Snape’s face and back. “Hey, sssh, it’s okay,” he said to Snape, who looked distraught. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Sunday,” corrected the manager, dourly. “You can visit him on Sunday.”

It took a team of plump witches in pale green to extricate Harry from Snape’s grip. Harry was already having second thoughts. He had been with Snape every day for the past fortnight, sitting with him and trying to remember not to stroke his hair…

Was this really the right thing to do?

“I, er, I’m not sure –” he began.

“Mr Potter, you _owe_ it to him to leave him somewhere where he’ll get the best care,” said the manager, peeking inside the room as the team of pale green orderlies held Snape down. “You’re just not capable of keeping him safe. It’s just for now, whilst they get him stable. Who knows; perhaps one day soon, you can sort out some way of taking him home. You know the home environment you have for him currently is not suitable.”

Harry couldn’t bear to look at Snape as he left the room, and he knew he was being a far bigger coward than Snape had ever been.

~

Harry’s head thudded down onto the pub table in despair.

“God, that was awful,” he groaned. “Did you see the look in his eyes when I left?”

“We saw,” Hermione said, carefully. “But you still made the right decision. He’s too volatile to be allowed to roam free.”

“Look on the bright side, mate,” Ron said, grinning as he set down Harry’s pint beside his head. “Leaves you more free to find someone our own age.”

Hermione elbowed Ron sharply, muttering something about his ‘pathological lack of tact’.

“I don’t _want_ somebody our own – you think I shoved him in there to get _rid_ of him?” Harry demanded, sitting up indignantly.

“I’m just saying, what happens if they can’t cure him – are you going to hold out forever? He’s like an animal, Harry – the man you lo… the…” Ron clearly had trouble, fumbling over the words. “Your boyfriend is gone.”

“If I truly believed that…” Harry trailed off, lifting his pint to his lips. “No, actually, I’d still stay. It’s like dementia – if Hermione gets ill one day, when you two are eighty, and she can’t remember you, will you just bugger off?”

“Of course not,” Ron snapped.

“You still think of him as your boyfriend, then?” Hermione persisted. “Because, Harry… I’m not sure that’s, well… healthy. At least with dementia, people don’t usually lose all semblance of _humanity_.”

“I’ve been through a lot of crap,” Harry said, vehemently. “I’ve found the man I want. I am not going to leave just because he’s a nutter and you don’t like him. I’m aware this is probably to my detriment – yes I did learn that word from him, Ron, get used to it – but I’m going to try. I’m going to find a place that _is_ suitable for him to live.”

“Just flirt a little,” Ron implored him, “with some nice, er, bloke. See what a normal relationship’s like – one where he won’t try to eat you or play fetch with your glasses – or shag your mother!”

“Snape never shagged my mother,” Harry grumbled. “I wish I’d never told you about that now.”

“Never shagged you either,” Ron shrugged. “Didn’t you say he’s impotent?”

“Is that my fault?” Harry snapped.

“No, it’s his,” Hermione interrupted. “He sounded, forgive me Harry… really messed up. Even if he recovered, it was hardly healthy, was it?”

“Well, maybe him losing his inhibitions is a good thing, then,” Harry said. “Maybe it’ll sort him out.”

“You mean… in the bedroom? You can’t want to do him whilst he’s like this – it’d be like play fighting with a bear!” Ron blurted.

Harry snorted into his pint, dripping beer down his chin.

“Cheers Ron! Well, anyway, I’m looking at cottages in Scotland this weekend.”

“Harry… I know you won’t like me for saying this, but… what’s the rush?” Hermione said, cautiously.

“You know, mate, Snape seems much calmer where he is –”

“I’ve already told my landlord. I’m leaving – packing next week, if anyone wants to help? I don’t suppose I can crash in the caravan until…” Harry trailed off, hopefully.

“Of course you can,” Ron grinned.

~

“Mr Potter, how did you get in? That is… Don’t you think it is unwise for you to be here?”

“Why?” Harry asked, glancing up. It was Wednesday. But he had promised Snape he would be back tomorrow, and so here he was.

_Yes, I’m a rebel. Sue me_.

He was sat on the floor, outside Snape’s barred door. Snape crouched on the other side, pale, lined, and starved-looking, one arm through the bars. His fingers were clutching Harry’s wrist. Harry was stroking Snape’s fingers and feeding him grapes through the bars.

It had been quite comfy, until the wizard in sickly green had shown up.

Snape had nearly polished off the bag of grapes (which made Harry concerned as to how often they were feeding him), and Harry was about to show him house leaflets, to try and gage his reaction.

The wizard shifted from foot to foot, then tried again:

“Your presence appears to be, ah, _inflammatory_ for him.”

“How?” Harry demanded. He felt rather disadvantaged to be having this sort of conversation on the floor, lower down, so he tried to get up. But Snape would not let go of his wrist.

“Severus,” Harry hissed, “I’m just standing up.”

“He doesn’t understand,” the wizard said, as though Harry were five. “Perhaps give him a few days, or even weeks, hmm? Then you can go back to seeing him – you wouldn’t want to set his recovery back, would you?”

“Of course not,” Harry whispered, shocked at the thought. “But I just… he didn’t want me to go, yesterday, when I… Would I really set him back, by being here?”

“Rules are here for a reason, Mr Potter. Although, from what I’ve gathered, you don’t tend to have much regard for them, normally.”

Bristling, Harry yanked his hand away from Snape.

“I… alright. If it’s what he needs in order for his treatment to… to work, I’ll… Okay. B-bye Severus, then.”

“A wise decision, Mr Potter.”

Leaflets tucked miserably under his arm, Harry trudged back down the lane.

 

**January 15th**

The night Snape moved in, they ate dinner in strained silence, hunched around Harry’s tiny kitchen table.

Harry made toad-in-the-hole and opened a bottle of wine, which he then spilled upon the plastic table cloth, providing Snape with ample opportunity to call him an idiot.

Snape remained unnervingly silent.

The damp smell of the spilt wine lingered even after Snape Banished it.

“What are you planning to do now, then?” Harry asked, mouth full, watching Snape lazily swirl the dregs of his wine around in his glass.

Snape crinkled his nose.

“Your table manners are appalling, Potter,” he sniffed. Harry shrugged, and went back to fishing awkwardly through his dinner.

“I shall need to commandeer your spare room,” Snape said, suddenly.

“My spare… What spare room?” Harry asked, sitting up straighter.

“You don’t have a spare room?” Snape demanded, cantankerous. “What sort of useless place is this?”

“This is my _home_!” Harry said, hotly. “Into which nobody invited you!”

“Fine,” Snape snarled, shoving his chair back rudely and getting to his feet in a flurry of robes. Harry sighed.

“Sit down.”

“No.”

“Sit down! And take those robes off – you’re not a teacher here. Don’t you own any jeans?”

“Drop dead,” Snape snapped, striding to the door (which took him all of two steps).

“Wow, that’s mature,” Harry grumbled, throwing his knife and fork down onto the table in disgust.

“You honestly do not have a spare room?” Snape repeated, turning round in the doorway.

“What, you think I’m so dense I forget rooms in my own flat?” Harry challenged. “I know you’re used to a large suite of rooms, but there’s nowhere else for you to sleep, so –”

“I do not wish to sleep in it,” Snape interrupted, wearily. “It is for my business.”

“Your b… Oh no, no potions in my house!” Harry said, collecting up the plates viciously and dumping them in the sink. He heard Snape swear behind him.

“I do not wish to sell potions – I hate the blasted things,” Snape growled. “Whatever joy it may have once held for me has been ruthlessly desiccated over the years by idiotic children such as yourself!”

“What are you going to live off, then?” Harry demanded. “Because, I’m warning you, it’s not your ready wit and charming personality!”

“Most droll, Mr Potter,” Snape sneered, “but I have other talents at my disposal. I merely need an office – somewhere I will not be disturbed by your meddlesome prattling.”

“As soon as training starts, I’ll be out all day!” Harry protested.

“I require,” Snape said, painstakingly, as though Harry were spectacularly dense, “a space of my own. Do you have nowhere?”

“There might be room for a desk in the box room with the washing machine,” Harry said, thoughtfully.

“Then I shall start immediately,” Snape said.

~

“This is intolerable,” Snape complained, thirty minutes later. He was standing over Harry (and still wearing his robes), who glanced up from his new sofa, where he was reading a magazine.

“Already?” Harry inquired, mildly, swinging his feet over the edge of the tatty sofa arm. “You’ve only just started.”

“I cannot own my keep with that… _thing_ , in there.”

“It’s washing my boxers. It’s nearly finished,” Harry said.

“It disturbs my concentration.”

“You won’t say that when you don’t have any clean underwear,” Harry reminded him.

Snape threw up his hands.

“I despair,” he exclaimed.

“Why are you trying to work tonight anyway – you’ve only just got here!” Harry sighed. “I don’t care if you go a few weeks without earning anything, I’m sure we’ll survive.”

“What would you have me do instead?” Snape asked, scowling at him.

“You could unpack. Have a bath. Screw me,” Harry shrugged. “Whatever you want.”

Snape reddened.

“There will be… none of that,” he said, turning away.

“None of what?”Harry asked, sitting up. “None of… Why? Look, we’ve never discussed what happened the other night –”

“I do not _wish_ to discuss it. I must work,” Snape said, and disappeared back into the laundry room.

~

Harry knocked on Snape’s door at a quarter to ten, saying he was going to bed now, if Snape would like to join him. There was no answer. Harry sagged a little, and trotted back into the bedroom, wrapped in his duvet.

He was just putting out the light when Snape appeared in the doorway.

“Why don’t you have a double bed?” Snape snapped, arms folded. “I was expecting a double bed.”

“In a flat for one, in London, with barely five rooms? You seem to be expecting a lot tonight,” Harry grumbled, sleepily. “Stop fussing and come lie down.”

“Are you wearing anything under there?” Snape demanded, primly.

“Yes, but I can always take it off,” Harry said, sitting up a little, propped on his elbow. He motioned to his boxers clumsily; inexperienced, but not for wont of enthusiasm. “Shall I?”

“No,” Snape said, curtly. “Put a shirt on. I shall return,” and he was gone.

He returned, barely ten minutes later, to find Harry lying in bed, fully clothed.

Harry even had his coat and shoes on.

“Most amusing,” Snape hissed, shutting the door crossly, clad in a long, greying nightshirt. He dumped his bundle of clothing on the chair, turned off the light and stalked over to the bed in the darkness.

Harry bounced a little, petulantly, as Snape got in beside him. Back to Snape and face to the wall, he was horribly hot in his coat.

Snape settled himself awkwardly beside him, on his back, and lay still.

“You can remove that, you know,” Snape snapped, suddenly.

“My body offends you,” Harry grumbled.

“It doesn’t,” Snape said, tersely. “The opposite, in fact.”

“But you said there’ll be none of…”

“I… the subject is… Do we have to do this now?”

“Yes,” Harry said, sitting up and scowling at where he thought Snape’s face was. “We do. You’ve moved in, taken over, and proclaimed that there will be no sex, all in one night! I tell you I love you and you just take over! That’s not… well, normal!” he finished.

“If you recall, I did make an effort too, the other night. I can always go,” Snape said, nastily, “if I have outstayed my welcome so soon.”

“You were never welcome!” Harry snapped back. “Oh no you don’t!” he cried, throwing himself atop Snape as Snape started to sit up in indignation. “Stay here and tell me why we can’t have sex!”

“I - get off me, Potter! I cannot conscion it, that’s why,” Snape growled, struggling beneath Harry’s bulk. “You saw what happened last time we… were _close_. I could not… I found it…”

“Because of my mum,” Harry hissed. “Go on, I dare you to say it!”

“She would hardly have approved of us, would she?” Snape demanded, shoving Harry away. “You have that easy, chaste power of virginity – the rest of us are not so simple!”

“So you _have_ had sex with other people – you’ve not just been saving yourself for my mum?” Harry demanded.

Snape refused to reply.

 

**June 29th**

Harry looked down at the brochure in his hand.

“It says it has a garden, out the back?” he asked, peering out of the little cottage window into the mist-swirled dampness outside.

The garden was all but obscured – Harry could see the monstrous shape of a tree, looming out of the fog a few yards off.

“Almost an acre,” the agent smiled, “although I admit it seems a little hard to believe at the moment.”

“Is it always like this?” Harry asked.

“By no means! Although it’s not… infrequent…”

Harry smiled, wryly.

“I don’t mind. I like it. I was… I went to school in Scotland, not too far from here really.”

“There are tales the locals tell of beasts in the mist, some nights. Not true, obviously, but you can see where they get it from. Some even swear they hear sea monsters calling to each other on dark nights.”

“Sounds perfect,” Harry muttered. “Does it have a dungeo – a basement?”

 

**January 19th**

“This is ridiculous,” Harry said, slumping on his knees against the laundry room door, forehead rested wearily against the wood. “Locked out from my _own_ underpants!”

Snape had gone out, armed with a sheaf of papers and a scowl, saying, “I must advertise.”

But Harry’s washing was done, and needed drying. More urgently than that, he had run out of underwear.

There was only so many times one could _Scourgify_ one’s pants before it became critical.

Knowing Snape would be spitting livid, Harry pointed his wand at the door and whispered softly.

Littering Snape’s tiny, transfigured desk (Harry had no idea what Snape had used for this transfiguration – he only hoped he wouldn’t need it urgently later) were papers splattered with pockets of Snape’s cramped, tiny handwriting.

Harry picked up one torn scrap and peered at the words.

“A curse to make the victim violently insert their head up their own ba… _Severus_!” he spluttered, snatching up another parchment and scanning it. “Sit back and watch their fingers drop off one by… Ewww!” He cringed, dropping the paper in revulsion. There were many others too, more subtle curses; psychological and cruel, delicious torments…

They reminded Harry of Snape’s introductory speech in his sixth year: ‘You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible,’ Snape had said.

‘Torment your enemies with tailor made, beautiful curses, and custom purpose horrors,’ whispered the adverts.

“Oh, Severus,” Harry sighed, dropping the papers. “It seems the old fixations win out in the end… Was that part of why you left, so that you could pursue your old obsession?”

 

**June 31st**

Harry rang the bell determinedly, the three brochures tucked under his arm. It was Sunday; perfectly within the rules. Wild horses would not keep him away this morning.

Snape was hunched in his cell, on his bed, wedged into the corner of the room. He regarded Harry glassily.

“Well, you do seem calmer. Look,” Harry said, eagerly, holding out one of the brochures, “I’m buying us a place, so that when you get out, we can –”

Snape’s hand flailed out and smacked the papers from Harry’s hand. They scattered across the floor.

“Oh,” Harry whispered. “Okay…” He tried to smile. “Not that one, then. I’d figure you wouldn’t like that one, it’s a bit decrepit – the loo’s outside in the shed, for God’s sake… To be honest with you, I like this other one the best. It’s really isolated, and it’s in Scotland. I’ve already been up there at night, putting wards up and stuff, just to see how easy it was. I think you’d like it there, have a look –”

Snape spat at him, then tried to back himself away _into_ the wall.

Harry dropped the brochure again.

His hand was trembling.

“Oh,” he said, shocked; tails of spittle trickling down his cheek. “It’s okay. It’s okay,” he repeated, numbly, as the door behind him swung open.

“Is he acting up?” came a voice. “Perhaps he doesn’t recognise you. You’ve not exactly been here, have you?”

Harry turned, blindly, moisture prickling at his eyes.

“What?” he hissed. “After _four days_? And how was I supposed to _be here_ , when –”

“It’s a miracle he remembered you at all, really – you’d best go. If he doesn’t know who you are, there’ll be nothing stopping him from hurting you.”

Harry, choked by the unfairness of it all, looked about for something of Snape’s to kiss – but the room was devoid of everything, except Snape, who looked unapproachable, and the bed.

He got tears all over Snape’s pillow when he kissed it. Neither Snape nor the orderly looked particularly impressed.

Harry almost made it to the gate, although how he managed to find it, through the mist of tears, was a mystery.

~

As he was slipping out through the outer door, an alarm went off. Harry wondered miserably whether it was to warn the world that there was an idiot loose. But something far more serious seemed to be happening.

“What’s going on?” somebody asked, urgently.

“That filthy animal in thirteen took a chunk out of someone’s arm. He’ll be put down for this, you wait,” came an irate voice, and a woman in green bustled across the courtyard.

“Put d…” Harry’s blood ran cold. _Thirteen_? “Did you say thirteen?” he cried, nipping back through the iron door just as it sprang closed. “Wait!”

The woman turned and regarded him impatiently.

“I’m the relative of the man in thirteen – what’s he done?” Harry exclaimed.

“Oh. Ah, Mr Potter, your relative is clearly a danger to himself and to other people – in these sort of situations, when staff are harmed, it is standard procedure to let the, er, animal be put dow –” she spluttered– and Harry could see this quickly spiralling out of his control. Horrified, he pulled his wand from his pocket.

“Give me your keys,” he snarled. “ _Now_.”

 

**January 19th**

“Don’t you think this is bloody effing stupid?” was the welcome home Snape received that evening.

Harry was sat, cross-legged, on the sofa, fairly vibrating with nervous energy. He was surrounded by Snape’s research and crude sketches, and numerous empty coffee cups. _Probably spent all afternoon planning how to tell me off_ , Snape thought, sourly.

“Go on then,” Snape grumbled, folding his arms and leaning his back against the closed door. “Get it out.”

“I… you’re barely out of prison, Severus – four months as reinstated Headmaster and then you quit and pull this crap… How am I supposed to start Auror training in – what – three weeks? With the knowledge of _this_ , happening in my very home?”

“I could always Obliviate you.” Snape shrugged. Harry went ballistic.

“THIS ISN’T A JOKE! Are you addicted to Dark magic, is that it?” he demanded.

Snape glanced down at his arms, head on one side, considering.

“Perhaps,” he said, mildly. “Am I not allowed to make a living doing what I am proficient at?”

“Not when it involves people’s fingers dropping off – Severus, some of these are awful!”

Snape snorted.

“Rudimentary nonsense. Children’s curses,” Snape scoffed.

“Children’s curs – I don’t believe you,” Harry yelled, leaping up. “For children like my little nephew Teddy, I suppose you mean? He’s supposed to come round tomorrow! I want to start looking after him, but how can I when you – shall we practice this on him?”

“I did not mean _actual_ children,” Snape snapped, unfolding his arms crossly. “Curse writers have been around since Roman times, it’s hardly –”

“I’m betting their curses never did what these do!” Harry snarled, snatching up handfuls of Snape’s work and scrunching the paper into balls. “You need serious help.”

“Rubbish,” Snape sulked. “It’s nothing.”

“Fine,” Harry snapped back, “then give it up.”

“I have just posted my advertisements,” Snape said, exasperatedly. “I can hardly refuse business now.”

“You will,” Harry cried, eyes flashing, “or you leave. I adore you, but you push and push – you will leave this house!”

Snape swore under his breath, clutching at himself again; fingers curling around his biceps so he looked as though he were hugging himself. He stared at the floor, seemingly weighing up his options very quickly.

“How about,” he said, quietly, considering, “if I endeavour to make my products do… no actual bodily harm?”

Harry stopped, blinking uncertainly.

“Better,” he said, cautious, uncurling his contorted fingers and letting the destroyed papers flutter to the floor like leaves. He took a step towards Snape. “More. What about people like the Longbottoms? Not all pain is physical.”

“You’re cutting my bloody balls off, here,” Snape scowled. “Plus… no psychological damage, either.”

“Go on,” Harry whispered. Snape’s eyes widened; he had clearly expected that to be enough. Snape looked rather trapped for a moment.

“Perhaps if… the results of the curses are never…” Snape looked like he was going to be sick; like the concession physically hurt him, “permanent.”

“Good,” Harry said, softly, as though he were soothing a wild animal. Snape turned away, looking sickened.

“So all I can do, basically, is scare people with fakery like a bloody Muggle magician,” he growled.

“I’m sure you will use your… creativity,” Harry said, sidling closer to Snape and slipping his arms about the older man’s neck, “to work something out. You always fall on your feet.”

Snape slid an arm about Harry’s waist.

“You have to promise to do those things, though,” Harry whispered, into Snape’s ear. “Promise you won’t keep a separate line hidden secret from me.”

Snape eyed him warily.

“It is a lot to ask, so early in a relationship. I have already given up everything for you,” Snape sniffed.

“You’ve barely started this business,” Harry persisted. “I love you. Show me that you… that you care too, by doing this for me.”

Snape closed his eyes.

 

**June 29th**

“For the first time in my life, I bloody listened to other people instead of blundering on regardless – and look where it got me!” Harry thundered. He gripped Snape’s wrist tightly.

Snape followed him rather blindly, stumbling along behind, face damp and raw and eyes glistening.

_Drugged up to the eyeballs_ , Harry thought angrily.

Like Hogwarts, there was no Apparition on the grounds of the hospital. Glancing about wildly, Harry bundled Snape through a half-open window and, throwing caution to the wind, hauled Snape across the lawn, towards the gate.

Fumbling in his pocket for his wand again ( _How on earth do I keep getting myself into these situations?_ ), Harry tightened his grip on Snape.

Harry’s concerns as to how he was going to get them past the security at the outer gate came to nothing.

At the sight of Harry Potter, wand drawn and face set into a cold mask, eyes flashing dangerously, the man had let them pass silently, the folds of fat at his neck wobbling anxiously as he swallowed.

Harry dragged Snape through the iron gate – to the scream of: “Don’t you dare!”

He turned. One of the orderlies – the man who had turned Harry out on Wednesday – was streaking towards them across the grass, but Harry just shrugged, and wrapped his arms about Snape’s neck.

Snape regarded him wildly, and the next moment – they were gone.

~

They landed on the soft, dew-speckled moss of the garden behind the Scottish cottage.

Staggered; fell.

Snape scrambled up, eyes wild. He crawled a few yards, and vomited onto the grass.

Harry flopped onto his back and lay there, panting, staring at the sky as little dots burst in front of his vision.

He was startled up by the sound of ripping cloth. Propping himself up on his elbows, he watched, frozen, as the charms keeping Snape’s clothing on dissolved.

Snape, bare-chested, tore at his own skin, and the hideous white pyjamas, twitching and quivering as though he were covered in ants.

He had shredded his clothing in seconds.

Mesmerised, Harry’s throat went dry as he stared at the scrawny patch of rather lank-looking dark hairs on Snape’s chest. Snape’s ribcage was cruelly visible beneath his papery, scarred skin, and his hip bones jutted out sharply, like knives. Gaunt and pale, Snape had muscles in his arms that seemed to wrap around the bones beneath like ivy, along with several tattoos, most of which appeared to be snakes. The Dark Mark still sat, muted and desiccated-looking, on Snape’s left forearm.

Snape gritted his teeth as he clawed at the nasty starched underpants the hospital had given him –Harry gritted his teeth too – never before had he seen – oh good _Lord_!

Harry, feeling pretty feral himself at the sight of Snape’s thick, flushed cock, hanging heavy and ponderous above his big, dangling balls, groaned. He sank back onto the grass as Snape, stark naked and sweating, darted away into the bushes.

Harry desperately hoped that his homemade wards would hold.

~

Snape refused to go anywhere near Harry (or the house) for three days.

Harry stayed inside, ghostlike, doors and windows locked, watching anxiously from the bedroom window. Unsure whether it was wise to go outside.

The potions Snape had been dosed with must be wearing off.

Harry didn’t want to face the possibility that Snape would just attack him, so he stayed where he was, catching occasional glimpses of Snape prowling the grounds like a wounded beast.

Slowly summoning up the courage to face the very real prospect that Snape had forgotten him entirely.

~

Harry was sat on the lawn, clutching a cup of tea and staring blankly into space, trying bravely not to listen for footsteps – when there came a sharp growl from behind him. Snape had crept up on him, unawares.

Harry jumped, and spilled his tea.

He turned, heart hammering in his chest. Snape was sat, a few yards off, both palms upturned and an angry, aggravated expression on his face.

He scowled at Harry; hesitant, it seemed, to move any closer.

“Hey,” Harry said, dumping his teacup on the grass and crawling over. “Are you – bloody hell. Your poor hands. Did you fall in a bush?”

Snape’s hands were stuck with prickles. Both palms, as though Snape had tripped, and used his hands to break his fall. His body was littered with scratches, bruises, insect bites, and patches of dried blood.

Harry allowed his eyes – just for one, guilty moment – to drop to Snape’s lap. At least that looked healthy; the older man’s cock lay sleepily against one of his thighs.

_I can check that for you too, if you like_ , Harry thought, then mentally slapped himself. _Bad Harry. Don’t take advantage_.

Snape continued to glower at him, and Harry, twitchily, moved a little nearer. He reached for Snape’s bloodied hands.

“It’s okay,” Harry said, soothingly. “I’ll sort you out. You remember me, don’t you? I’d never hurt you…”

Snape sniffed, but stayed put stoutly as Harry gently began pinching the thorns free of his skin.

~

Something seemed to shift, between them, after that. Harry would go outside and Snape would inevitably sneak up on him at some point, sniffing him, or letting Harry stroke his back (not his hair, never his hair).

Harry supposed that Snape was starting to remember him, once more. He was almost dizzy with relief and happiness.

~

There was an acre of garden attached to the cottage, isolating it from the road in a cocoon of trees. The little house quivered on the edge of a dark wood. Odd, sinister trees crept cautiously onto Harry’s land.

It _was_ Harry’s land, now – he had been down to the village. When asked how soon he would like to move in, Harry had been forced to confess:

“Um, we’re already squatting.”

“We?” the agent inquired. “How many of you?”

“Just me,” Harry said, awkwardly. “Me and… my rather unusual pet.”

“What, like an iguana or something?”

“Erm,” Harry blushed, “no. Not exactly.”

Most of the garden was giant bushes dotted about a lawn not recently cut, but not overgrown, with dustings of scattered daisies. Harry imagined Snape here, as he used to be. Knelt in the dirt, perhaps, charms on his cuffs to keep his shirt pristine because he didn’t want to roll his sleeves up and expose his arms…

Even the new Snape seemed calmer here.

~

Harry made quiet attempts to be civilised, but trying to make Snape sleep in the cottage’s bed proved nigh on impossible. Snape took an instant disliking to it.

Slightly desperate, Harry tried arranging a pile of blankets for him on the warm flagstones of the kitchen floor, keen that Snape not sleep in the bushes and catch his death. But Snape had turned his nose up at it and stalked off, like a large, imperious cat.

In the end, Harry settled for dumping the black sheets in a pile in the hall and hiding around the bend in the staircase, waiting sadly, like some sort of lovesick twitcher.

~

Curled up on the stair carpet, he fell asleep, and awoke as the sun was setting, just in time to see the last of the blankets trailing away into the kitchen.

He crept down the stairs and peered in – and was amused to find Snape busily arranging sheets (with a very serious expression) into a nest under the kitchen table.

Knelt in the doorway, coiled and ready to back away, Harry smiled.

“Room for one more?” he asked, softly. Snape’s head snapped up – he glowered at Harry through the gloom, mistrustfully, before settling himself into his nest and pulling the sheets over his head.

Dejectedly ( _perhaps he really doesn’t remember me after all_ ), Harry went upstairs and retrieved his duvet and a pillow, before settling himself on the kitchen floor, a few yards off.

“Night, then,” he whispered, waving his wand at the fire and removing his glasses. As the flames dimmed, he added: “I love you.”

There was no reply.

~

Harry awoke, warm (and cramped) to find that Snape had collected him in the night, like a magpie collects shiny objects – he was lying in Snape’s nest, with Snape half on top of him.

~

Ron and Hermione turned up on Thursday with a basket saying ‘Welcome to your new home’.

Quite literally.

“Sorry about that, mate,” Ron mumbled, apologetically, as Harry quickly emptied the contents onto the table and dumped the basket in the spare room. “They said the charm would wear off pretty quick.”

“It’s okay,” Harry said. “Maybe it’ll amuse Severus for a bit. Or spook him.”

“Maybe you should get him a chew toy,” Ron smirked, plonking himself down comfortably on one of Harry’s chairs with a bit of a swagger.

“Somebody sent one of those squeaky things,” Harry groaned, fingering the gifts littering his table. Some tea, chocolate, shortbread, butter and a pot of marmalade. Nothing Severus would really like. “He pulled the head off it and I found its body floating in the toilet.”

Ron sat up.

“He uses the _toilet_?” he gawped. Harry rolled his eyes.

“Don’t be stupid,” he said.

“So you don’t give him a box in the corner with, what’s it called? Kitty litter?” Ron seemed to find this hilariously funny. Hermione smiled, awkwardly, her eyes darting warily to Harry’s face.

“Fortunately,” Harry said, voice clipped, “I’ve never had to worry about it.”

“Why?” Ron asked. “Where do you keep him?”

“Keep him?” Harry said, glancing about. “As in, _locked up_ keep him?”

“He’s _loose_?” Ron squawked, flailing about in his chair as he struggled to get to his feet. “Here? Where is he now?”

“I can’t imagine,” Harry shrugged. “Probably in the garden; he likes it out there. He’d sleep out there if I didn’t entice him in every night,” he added, nodding to the nest of blankets under the table – then coloured. Fortunately, Ron didn’t notice.

“Aren’t you afraid he’ll come upon you in your sleep?” Ron exclaimed. This was such an unfortunate choice of words that Harry decided very suddenly that he _really must_ make tea for them all, now, and got up swiftly.

“I felt the wards when we came in,” Hermione interjected, speaking for the first time since her arrival. “They’re all round the house?”

“All round the edge of the garden,” Harry corrected her, holding the kettle under the running tap. He turned – to find Ron gawking at him. Hermione got up.

“Speaking of the loo,” she said, and smiled shyly at Harry as she left the room.

“He’s feral, Ron, not _rabid_ ,” Harry snapped, slamming the kettle down into its holder.

“What’s the difference?”

“He doesn’t attack anything that moves,” Harry growled. “Apart from squirrels,” he amended. “He hates squirrels.”

“You could have warned us,” Ron muttered, accusingly.

Then, from outside in the corridor:

“ _Aaaaaah!_ ”

Hermione’s scream chilled Harry to the bone instantly.

“‘Mione?” Ron howled, seizing Harry’s shirt and dragging him along as he darted out into the corridor – to find Hermione sat on the stairs, looking slightly pale.

Snape (naked – Harry paled also) was knelt before her, his head on her stomach. He seemed to be listening for something.

Because of the angle, however, Ron clearly got the wrong idea –

“Get away from her, you filthy _beast_!” he screamed. But Hermione held up a hand, wearily.

“He’s okay,” she whispered. “They say animals can sense things…”

“What’s he _sensing_?” Ron demanded. “With his face so near to your –”

“The baby,” Hermione said, simply. She gazed up at Ron imploringly. “Don’t make a fuss here, please –”

“ _Baby?_ ” Ron and Harry gasped, in unison. The news seemed to sink in faster for Ron than it did for Harry. Then jealousy spiked through him.

“Get back!” Ron yelled, leaping at Snape like a man possessed. Startled, Snape spun around with a growl – and Ron froze at the sight of his former Professor’s rather prominent genitalia.

_He’s not hard, is he?_ Harry thought frantically, peering over Ron’s shoulder. Fortunately, Snape was not. He was just naked. Harry waited anxiously for Ron’s reaction.

Ron burst out laughing.

“Oh my God!” he wheezed. “Look at his… _ha_! Bloody Snape’s well hu –”

“What’s funny about it?” Harry demanded. “Not at the age yet where you can see another man’s cock without giggling like a girl?”

Ron sobered up, blinking in bewilderment as he saw Hermione and Harry watching him, decidedly unimpressed.

“I… I’m sorry,” Ron gulped, “it’s just…” He glanced at Snape, nervously. “I think we’d better go, Hermione, don’t you? Before Snape discovers you’re carrying twins.”

Harry snorted.

“That’s the worst excuse for leaving I’ve ever heard,” he taunted. “You’re not scared!”

“What’s stranger, Harry,” said Ron, collecting Hermione carefully, “is that you’re not.”

~

“Have you ever tried… I know this will sound preposterous, Potter, but… _playing_ with him? You know… like a cat?” Minerva asked, stood on Harry’s lawn and watching Snape trying to fish things out of the pond.

“You think he’d play fetch if I threw a stick?” Harry asked, sardonically.

Minerva shrugged, grumbled, “I would," and went back to reinforcing the wards.

~

He tried it, that afternoon. Snape was digging – he loved digging. Ever so often, he’d come and collect Harry from wherever Harry was (pretending to garden, mostly) and dump him in the hole.

“Hey!” Harry spluttered, the third time this happened, spitting dirt out of his mouth. “What’s the idea?”

Snape ignored him, scowled, and wandered off. He would have looked more imposing had he not been stark naked. Harry supposed he ought to do something about that, at some point…

“Severus!” he called.

Snape turned, probably at the loud noise more than the use of a familiar word, and blinked at him. Harry threw the stick weakly, an apologetic smile on his face. It landed on the ground with an embarrassing ‘thud’.

Snape looked at Harry as though _he’d_ gone mad.

“Er… fetch?” Harry tried. Snape stalked away (if he had a tail, Harry suspected it would have been in the air in disgust). “Worth a try,” Harry sighed. “Perhaps he’d chase something…”

~

Snape would. As long as it was named Harry. He’d swatted away the ball-with-a-feather-and-a-bell that Harry had rolled hopefully past him, but was more than willing to wander from room to room when Harry took his shirt off.

Harry was tempted to remove more, but wasn’t quite sure what Snape would do if he caught him.

 

**February 10th**

“No dark magic in bed,” said Harry, standing in the bedroom doorway with his fingers tapping impatiently upon his folded elbows.

Snape, sat in Harry’s bed, hunched and crabby, looked up from his parchments and scowled at Harry, quill in hand.

“I must create an advert, and copyright my _non-illegal_ creations. You could help, rather than whinging,” Snape added, glowering at Harry from under his brows. Harry bit back the retort that complained about his long day doing his new Auror training; exhaustion, general achiness… A massage, perhaps, would have been nice. Or a bath. But no…

“Are you creating a catalogue to send out?” Harry asked, sitting cross-legged on the duvet and picking up one of the papers. Snape’s handwriting was so cramped that Harry had to squint to make out actual words.

“What an excellent idea,” Snape sneered, snatching the paper out of Harry’s inquisitive fingers. “A list of all the illegal products I supply. So that, when the Aurors come, they can just take a quick look and send me straight to –”

“You said they weren’t going to be illegal,” Harry grumbled, uncrossing his legs unhappily and rubbing his calves. “Can you Obliviate me after this, please?”

“I did not,” Snape replied, silkily. “I said they would leave no lasting physical or psychological damage. Do you still have the handwriting of a baboon?” he added, thrusting a bundle of half-completed forms into Harry’s face.

“Yes,” Harry replied, petulantly, taking them and reaching for the quill, “but at least mine’s legible. Come on, then.” He peered at the form. “You’ve not filled in the name of this one, what’s it -”

“Which?” Snape asked, sitting up and leaning over Harry’s shoulder ( _this is the closest we’ve been in bed_ , Harry thought). “Ah. The, er… primal urges one.”

“Urges?” Harry said, peering at the writing. “What does it do?”

“I’m unsure about that one, leave it until last,” Snape sniffed. “I’ve not tested it yet.”

“‘It reduces the victim to a state of primal, animalistic instinct,’” Harry read. He eyed Snape, buttoned up to his neck in a fraying nightshirt. “Sounds nice.”

Snape looked down his nose at him.

“Get your mind out of the gutter,” Snape snapped, snatching the paper back. “Now, I shall dictate the ingredients and you shall transcribe.”

“Dictation in bed,” Harry sighed, settling down (and trying to will his erection away). “Whoever said grown-up romance was dull.”

 

**July 18th**

Harry wandered into the cottage’s low-ceilinged sitting room and froze.

Snape was lying face down on the new leather sofa, and he was… _grinding_ himself against it. He had his eyes closed, teeth bared, and his fingers gripping the leather beneath him like talons. Sweat trickled down his cheek and dripped onto the upholstery.

Harry backed out of the room and stood in the hall, his heart thrashing in his chest (possibly trying to get the blood up _out_ of his groin and back round the rest of his body again…).

Fuck! This was almost as bad as the time he’d tried to give Snape a shower. That had _not_ gone as Harry had envisaged…

~

Harry had managed to lure Snape into the bathroom with a spell that made strange snake-like green lights slither across the carpet. He had rewarded Snape (who was sat unsuspectingly in the bath) with a chicken leg.

He turned the shower on. Snape yelped.

“No!” Harry shouted, as Snape flailed and lashed at him. “Something’s got to be done about your hair – you look like a banshee!”

Seizing Snape’s wrist as the man tried to flee, Harry managed to check the temperature of the water with his other hand – then seized the shower head and pointed it at Snape.

Just at that moment, however, Snape pounced; and slipped, crashing back down into the tub.

“Oh – oh, God, I’m so sorry – are you… Oh!” Harry exclaimed, face flaming. For Snape was now lying on his back with his legs parted (a slightly dazed look on his face), the warm water cascading out of the shower head and… onto his balls.

As Harry watched, spellbound, Snape’s cock began to lengthen and thicken, turning red and turgid… Harry’s eyes became very round as Snape threw his head back and _panted_.

There was a moment, in which Harry realised that, to hold the shower head like that any longer, meant he was _deliberately_ pleasuring Snape, rather than just accidentally doing it…

He could have dropped it and recoiled, but he didn’t.

He turned the pressure up.

Snape growled, eyes pinched shut. Harry watched, unflinchingly, as Snape started to writhe, as one in pain shudders. Harry calmly checked the temperature of the water. He felt oddly disconnected – in shock – as though he had cast _Cruciatus_ on Snape instead...

Suddenly, Snape arched his back, screwing up his face as a spasm of pleasure seemed to assault him and a roar was ripped from his throat. Harry lowered the jets of water so that they flowed over Snape’s balls, so that he could watch the streams of pearlescent come pulsing from the tip of Snape’s large cock…

He turned the shower off and slumped back against the wall, breathing hard. Snape still had his eyes closed. Harry looked down at his own clothes and realised he was sopping wet.

“I… I’m sorry,” Harry stammered, “you seemed to… Hell,” he sighed, “you can’t understand me anyway, it doesn’t matter what I say… You were fucking gorgeous.”

Snape scrambled up and out of the bath, rather shakily. Ignoring Harry, he left the room.

Harry put his head in his hands.

~

He couldn’t sleep that night. All he could think about was the way Snape’s body arched and trembled when he came – interspersed with Ron’s voice, going: “He’s an animal. It’s no better than a dog; that’s disgusting! Harry’d have to be some kind of pervert…”

_I certainly feel like a pervert_ , Harry thought, darkly.

He was so tempted to do more; to touch Snape, and to invite the other man to touch him… But Snape had never been able to have sex before, held back by… whatever his inhibitions were. If he ever recovered, he would be furious at Harry for not respecting his prior wishes.

_I need the company of people; I swear I’m going mad here. We’ll both end up feral if I’m not careful_ …

~

‘ _Harry Potter invites you to a family barbecue at Seeker’s Cottage on Sunday 23rd July at 2.30pm. RSVP, no need to bring anything, just yourselves_.’

“ _Family_ barbecue?” Ron said, puzzled, passing the card to Hermione as Hedwig II strutted up and down impatiently upon the window sill. “He’s not serious?”

“I think he is,” Hermione smiled, perusing the card thoughtfully. “He’s probably lonely in that house, with only Snape for –”

“Snape!” Ron interjected, thumping the table suddenly. “At a barbecue? What is Harry thinking? And what if he’s naked – it’ll put me right off!”

“I’m sure Harry isn’t inviting us over to gawp at his naked boyfriend,” Hermione frowned. “Floo George, will you, and your mum? See if they’ve been invited too.”

Ron got up, begrudgingly.

“Alright… I still don’t get it, though. A hot barbecue, lots of people, and a lunatic running loose. Hardly sounds good right from the start.”

“Harry’s not stupid,” Hermione said, shortly. “He’s probably thought through all… well, at least some of the problems. And he’s probably realised,” she added, smirking at Ron from beneath her eyebrows, “that this is his only chance to have one – can you imagine Snape at a barbecue normally?”

“No,” Ron shuddered. “I suppose, as long as he’s not naked, it might be alright…”

~

“Please wear the shirt, Severus,” Harry implored, following a disgruntled Snape out of the bathroom, clutching the black shirt to his chest, “even if you don’t wear the bow tie, or the trousers – just try the shirt…”

The guests were due in (Harry nervously checked the clock) half an hour. Everything was prepared; the barbecue smouldered outside in the garden, and inside the kitchen table was groaning with food and wine. There were lights in the garden, and bunting (no balloons – one had popped as Harry blew it up and Snape had gone mad), and Harry had finally made the fountain work… It was perfect.

Except that Snape wasn’t wearing any trousers.

Harry was at the point of spelling them onto him, like they were in the hospital, and this filled him with unhappiness.

“For me?” he asked, bending down to peer under the bed, where Snape had retreated to sulk. Snape rolled over, his back to Harry, and ignored him.

“Shit,” Harry muttered, dumping the clothes onto the floor.

~

“Well,” chimed Luna Lovegood, sipping at her own personally-created cocktail (which changed colour and whistled every time she drank from it), “isn’t this delightful?”

Mr and Mrs Weasley exchanged anxious glances.

Around the circle, Ron sipped his drink and said nothing, his fingers gripping white-knuckled at the arm of his garden chair. Hermione smiled at Luna and swirled the ice around in her lemonade glass. George grinned, the surreal nature of the situation not lost on him. Ginny looked like she was trying not to cry.

Neville looked positively terrified.

Nobody spoke. Rather desperately, Hermione tried to pass round the crisps – but when they got to Ron, he started stuffing huge, slightly hysterical handfuls into his mouth.

Arthur got up, patting his wife reassuringly on the shoulder as he passed. He went to join Harry at the barbecue.

“Alright there, Harry?” he smiled, slapping Harry on the back. Harry, bent over the coals, poked the sizzling rows of sausages, burgers and chicken wings, and tried to smile.

“Lovely,” he said, a little savagely.  
“Is… is he alright, down there?” Arthur asked, blinking in consternation at Snape’s supine form, curled drowsily around Harry’s feet like a large black kitten.

“He’s fine,” Harry gritted out. “He’s warm.”

“Well,” Ron shrugged, as he drained his glass and reached for another, “at least you can finally do something about his horrible… you know.”

“His horrible _what_?” Harry asked, blinking in confusion.

“His hair!” Ron exclaimed, grinning inanely, as though Harry were an idiot for not thinking of it sooner.

“Oh, you mean I could give it a wash?” Harry mused. “I’ve tried – have you ever bathed an animal? He hates it.”

“Wash it? No, I meant cut it off!” Ron snorted.

Harry had a mental image of poor, shorn Snape, curled up mournfully in the corner of the kitchen.

“I can’t do that, Ron – it was his decision to have it long! He might be, er, different now, but he’s not dead!”

“I like his bow tie,” Luna called. Mrs Weasley cringed. George’s smile widened.

“Thanks,” Harry said, shuddering. “Don’t think he’s too taken with it, though.”

“How did you get him to wear it?” George asked.

“It’s spelled on. Everything is, actu…” Harry trailed off, sadly.

“Likes to feel the call of the wild, does he?” George beamed. “Good man. I can just imagine if Dumbledore were here – what he’d say? ‘I favour a bit of skinny-dipping myself’, probably.”

Harry smiled gratefully at him.

“Bet you he’d have kept his socks on, though,” he grinned.

George exploded into fits of giggles.

“Oh, yes! Can you imagine him striding into the lake in his rainbow-coloured garters! Genius,” he chortled.

“Boys,” Mrs Weasley muttered, “don’t speak ill of the dead, it isn’t nice.”

“We’re not speaking ill of him, Mum,” George said, wiping the tears from his eyes, “we loved Dumbledore. Bet you Fred would have –”

“Fred isn’t here,” Ginny snapped. George’s face crumpled.

Silence.

“What’s that bandage on your wrist, Harry?” Hermione called.

“Him,” Harry grumbled, nodding down to his toes, where Snape lay, dormant (for now). “It was his way of saying he wasn’t so keen on the bow tie.”

“He _bites_ you?” Neville squeaked.

“Poor Neville,” Hermione said, patting Neville’s knee consolingly. “He was petrified of Professor Snape even _before_ he started to, er, bite…”

“I’m fine!” Neville squeaked. “As long as he stays with Harry.”

“What, so he can bite me instead?” said Harry, darkly, peering into a steaming, foil-wrapped parcel of baking fish. “Cheers.”

“Who wants more beer?” Arthur said, suddenly, clapping his hands together so abruptly that Snape flinched, awoke, and raised his head.

“I’ll help you,” Ron said, standing up so fast that the bowl of crisps in his lap nearly went flying.

“Me too!” said Neville, eyeing Snape unhappily.

~

Dinner was just as strained; Harry felt like he was going to explode. He was sorely regretting inviting so many people over.

The only sounds for a long time were the occasional whistles as Luna partook of her strange cocktail.

Everyone seemed transfixed by the sight of Harry, sat on the grass with Snape by his side, carefully picking the best bits off his chicken and fish.

Ron, who had evidently been expecting Harry to toss Snape the scraps, actually dropped his fork when Harry began feeding his painstakingly-acquired meat to his boyfriend.

Snape ate the meat straight from the palm of Harry’s hand without a hint of embarrassment, licking Harry’s palm clean and not even glancing up when Harry occasionally bent to press a kiss to the top of Snape’s head, as though he were used to it all.

“He likes chicken, then?” said George, who was watching them both rather wistfully.

“Yes. Any meat, really. He likes to crunch the bones of things,” Harry said loudly, sipping his glass of wine and smirking to himself when Neville whimpered into his hotdog.

“Does he eat stuff raw?” George asked. His mother elbowed him in the side, discreetly.

“I try not to let him,” Harry replied, thoughtfully. “You hear of all the bugs and things that are in raw meat… It’s not like he’s got the constitution of an animal. Although he does bring things home sometimes, injured birds and rodents. I’m not always there to make him let them go.”

“So he e-eats th-them?” Neville stammered, clutching his paper plate so hard that the edges beneath his fingers turned to mush.

“He’s more into burying things,” Harry mused. “He likes to stalk things and pull their heads off, but he never really eats –”

“Are you alright, Neville?” Luna asked suddenly, leaning over attentively. Neville had gone white, staring at Snape, frozen with his forkful of chicken halfway to his mouth...

Harry glanced at Snape – and realised that he was watching Neville like a hawk.

“He seems to have taken an interest in you,” Harry said, cautiously. “Or it might be the chicken. Toss him the chicken and maybe he’ll -”

Neville prised the meat off his fork with trembling fingers and flung it in Snape’s direction, but it was a poor, skewed throw.

Snape growled, his hair falling over his face.

“Shit, okay,” Harry said, scrambling to his feet as Snape started to prowl across the grass on all fours towards a horrified Neville. All around Neville, people dropped their plates and struggled to get up. “Er, maybe he remembers you? I’m not sure how to – Severus! Leave him alone! _Severus_!” Harry barked, reaching out to grab the back of Snape’s collar… as Snape pounced, red sparks crackling from his clawed fingers.

Neville shrieked – a hopeless, blood-curdling sound – and tipped his chair over backwards as he flailed and tried to rise.

“ _Harry?_ ” he howled, scrambling backwards like a crab across the grass as Snape stalked after him, eyes narrowed, singeing the ground as magic embers shot, wild and uncontrolled, from his palms. “ _Call him off!_ ”

“I can’t!” Harry called, frantically snatching at Snape’s clothing again as he scuttled after him. “Get in the house and lock the door!”

“What the hell? Aren’t you a wizard?” he heard Ron snort – and then a spell burst past him and plunged into the ground, sending grass and soil spraying in all directions.

“NO!” Harry screamed, as Snape shrieked and went sprawling across the lawn, fingers scrabbling at the dirt feverishly.

Snape fell, and a ball of terrible curse-black fire burst from his hand, tearing past Ron and blasting away towards the forest.

Ron cried out and raised his wand again, and Harry saw Snape’s death in Ron’s eyes – he leapt at Ron, wrestling the stick from his fingers.

Harry turned to glower thunderously at him as his guests watched Snape streaking away in terror across the lawn.

“Brilliant, Ron, just effing marvellous,” Harry snapped. “You come to my home and attack my boyfriend –”

“Fuck that!” Ron snarled, and Harry stopped short, shocked. “You invite us here, and nobody really knows what to do, but we all come, and then your pet Potions Master _assaults_ poor Neville – how long have you known he can do magic, by the way? He’s fucking lethal!”

“I didn’t know; he’s never done it before!” Harry protested, rubbing the back of his head. “I… I’ll have to do something about it, I guess.”

“No shit!” Neville squeaked, peeking out through the kitchen window.

“We always knew Snape had dark magic in his very pores – looks like his body remembers it,” Hermione murmured.

“You’ve got to have it dealt with!” Neville interrupted, clinging to the window sill.

“Dealt with? What the bloody hell do you mean ‘dealt with’?” Harry shouted, causing Neville to wince and shrink back away from the window. “How do you want me to ‘deal’ with him, Neville – more drugs, is that it?”

“Everybody needs to calm down,” Molly interjected, glancing apprehensively at her husband. “Harry didn’t know Snape would react so savagely, but it’s hardly surprising. He’s working on instinct.”

“What,” Ron snorted, “killer instinct? What do you see in him? What did you _ever_ see in him?”

“Ron! You can’t expect a wild animal to conform to our human standards of morality –” Hermione cut in – but one angry glare from Ron silenced her.

“Conform? No, Hermione, you’re right,” Ron cried. “We _can’t_ expect to be around a wild animal and have it behave as we would – so why the fuck are we being invited here, that’s what I’d like to know!”

~

“Well, that was a bloody nightmare,” said Harry, to Snape, who had wandered over to the banked coals of the barbecue and was watching them hiss as Harry held the hose pipe over them.

He had considered just using a spell, but he’d had enough of magic for one afternoon. Besides, spells made Snape nervous, and it had taken him several hours to emerge from the bushes. Snape looked like he’d been hiding in a hedge; his hair was even worse than ever.

Harry shrugged, and turned the hose pipe on him.

 

**February 13th**

“I’m sorry, Harry,” said Ron, setting down his drink with an air of finality, as Hermione gawped at Harry from across the table, “you’ve gone too far this time.”

“Me?” Harry cried, almost choking on his butterbeer. “I think you’ll find I’m the injured party in all this!”

“Then why didn’t you just tell him to leave?” Ron demanded. “But no, you’re too bloody soft. He _expelled_ you, only a few weeks ago, or have you forgotten?”

“He’s quit his job, Ron,” Harry interrupted, pleadingly. “He turned up with all his stuff and said he’d left Hogwarts – I couldn’t just turn him out into the street –”

“You could. The old Harry would have. Where’s your self-respect? But then, that Harry didn’t have a whacking great crush on some nasty, greasy –”

Harry sighed. Admitting to finding _Snape_ sexually desirable was like admitting to some exotic fetish for animals, or rubber, or kitchen utensils…

“You didn’t see his memories,” Harry interrupted. “You don’t know him like I do – he’s given up everything; did you see the headline in the Prophet last week? He’s being crucified for moving in with me, and so soon after being let out of prison –”

“Perhaps he didn’t want to return to Hogwarts anyway – and you’re letting him live with you for nothing! You’re not trying to tell us that he’s come over all nice. You’ve got the word ‘mug’ written all over you, Harry,” Ron snorted. “We’re just looking out for you,” he added, accusingly, when Harry’s frown deepened.

Harry sighed. All he seemed to hear from Ron these days was accusations, however well-meant they might be. Ron really wasn’t taking his new relationship well.

“He doesn’t stay for nothing, he’s got a job,” Harry muttered.

“I suppose he could always pay you in sex,” Hermione mused, eyes sparkling.

Ron spat out his beer.

“‘ _Mione!_ ” he spluttered. Harry hid his grin behind his hand – then reality caught up with him and he slumped back against the tall leather back of the booth seat.

“If only,” he sighed. Ron wiped his chin, watching Harry inquisitively. “Snape fancied my mum,” Harry said, simply, “when he was little. I don’t think he ever stopped. Then he killed her, indirectly – and he felt so guilty… and _then_ he felt that he’d be betraying her if he screwed me. That she wouldn’t approve of him doing it. I think, if he tries, he sees her angry face in his mind’s eye. I’m not sure. Hence,” Harry thumped the table, “her son finds it impossible to get a shag.”

“Does he show his… what do I call it? Love? In other ways?”

“I don’t know if it's love but yes, sometimes. He’s given up everything he had, I think that’s the main… It’s just that, well, in terms of being shown affection, an enormous erection is a pretty good indication,” Harry said, sadly.

“Not necessarily,” Hermione shrugged. “Which would you rather have, sex or emotion?”

“Why can’t I have _both_?” Harry sighed. “Sometimes, I want him so bad, I’d just take the sex. I know that’s a shameful thing to say.”

~

When Harry got in, still bristling from his friends’ so-called _concerns_ , he discovered that Snape had cursed the washing machine. There was also a tiny dark thundercloud hovering in the kitchen, raining on the counter top.

Little lightning bolts shot out liked forked tongues whenever Harry tried to open the drawers or turn on the kettle.

He finally trapped it in the fridge, and took his cup of hot chocolate to bed, slamming the door, bitterly. Why wasn’t Snape earning some bloody money instead of cursing random kitchen implements?

Ten minutes later, Snape emerged from the bathroom, clutching a bundle of papers, and peered into the bedroom.

“I thought I heard you stomping about,” he snapped.

Harry burst into tears. Sat in the ruin of his bed, he clasped his steaming mug of chocolate to his chest.

He had cried possibly twice in his life before, but he was a little drunk, and alcohol always made him depressed. Snape’s words were just the last straw.

Snape stood in the doorway, mouth open, agog, watching Harry mutely.

“Are you… injured?” Snape asked, clearly unnerved.  
Harry shook his head, forlorn; sniffing snottily. His mouth was wet and his eyes were gummy with sticky tears.

“I, ah, is it the rain cloud? Did you manage to Banish it? And, ah, don’t put anything in the washing machine for a few days…” Snape shifted, peering over his own shoulder into the kitchen.

“It’s in the fridge,” Harry croaked, scrubbing his wrist across his eyes. “No, it’s not that. I’m just being stupid.”

Snape held his papers tighter against his chest like a shield, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot.

“Generally, the accepted wisdom when one is feeling overwhelmed is to try and unburden oneself to one’s significant other,” he said, suddenly.

Harry smiled, slightly.

“You?” he whispered, wet eyes bright with hope. “Can I talk to you?”

Snape dropped all his papers all over the floor at the look on Harry’s face.

As he fumbled to pick them up, Harry set his cup down and crawled across the bed.

“Is that how you see yourself? Because it’s how I’d like to see you. If you weren’t so a…afraid…”

“I am afraid,” Snape admitted, staring at the floor. “I’m terrified. You’re worse even than that bloody snake, and that almost killed m... But that is not the issue. What happened to make you…” And he motioned feebly to Harry’s tear-stained face.

“I…” Harry sighed, trying again. “There’s so much I want, and I know it’s unfair to burden you with it. I want to settle down, I want a family; I’ve been through so much, and I fell so…” he took a deep breath, “so deeply in love with you, and I thought that’d sort everything. But Ron and Hermione think I’m _Confunded_ or something, and you’re not exactly loving… I can already see us turning into Vernon and Petunia, because I don’t know how to have a relationship, and you’d rather be here with my dead _mother_ than me –”

“Do not… think that,” Snape said, suddenly. “I have my own… things to deal with. I am trying. If it is of any comfort at all, I am not trying to reclaim some sort of lost past – I am here with _you_ , not them.”

Harry sniffed, warmth blossoming through his chest.

“It is. Thank you,” he whispered. Snape nodded, brusquely, not looking at him. “About the… the family thing… Do you think you’d ever –”

“No,” Snape said, eyes lowered. The warm feeling shrivelled a little. Harry closed his eyes.

“So it’s you or ba… Okay,” he said, huskily. “I can accept that.”

“Why?” Snape asked, looking at Harry sharply. “Why just accept it? You deserve more.”

“I don’t want more,” Harry scowled. “I want you. Physically, I want you, too –”

“I… look, you’ll have to wait,” Snape said, rubbing at his bowed forehead with his fingers. “I am not sexual, I am not…”

“I know,” Harry said, soothingly. “It’s okay. I can wait.”

“You are foolish to give so much and expect so little,” Snape sighed.

“I’m not foolish,” Harry said, sadly. “I just love you.”

Snape closed his eyes against the force of Harry’s words.

“About… children… I shall… think again about it. One day.”

“Thank you,” Harry choked out. “Will you kiss me? That’d cheer me up,” he added. He crawled off the bed and, kneeling upon Snape’s crumpled papers, leaned over. Snape seized his face with both hands and crushed their mouths together.

 

**July 31st**

Snape seemed to be developing a great fondness for cream. Harry wondered whether this was normal – perhaps Snape was turning into a large cat? Then again, what was normal about this entire situation?

Harry put a bowl on the kitchen floor and would randomly add more cream to it – he figured Snape could use the calories. Snape could occasionally be found sat by the bowl, just waiting.

Unfortunately, looking at the way Snape stuck his face in the bowl and lapped at the cream gave Harry… ideas.

~

It was wrong. _No, Harry, it’s wrong_ , he told himself, mentally. In Hermione’s voice, for good measure.

It made no difference.

Snape was still sulkily waiting for his cream and Harry still wanted to... _For God’s sake, he’s naked nearly all of the time; I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t want to_ …

Harry took the jug out of the fridge, and Snape sat up straighter.

‘He’s like a dog,’ his internal Ron reminded him.

‘He’s forgotten who he is,’ added internalised Hermione.

Harry set the jug of cream on the table, and undid his belt, his mind clamouring _pervert! Pervert!_

He caught sight of himself in the kitchen window, fingers flitting nervously over the opening of his trousers… Was he really going to do this?

He tried to tell himself it was logical. Snape wanted his cream, and Harry wanted…

He’d got the idea from some late night documentary he’d seen when he was ten, about ladies who ‘play’ with their pets. There was a story about cat food. At the time, where the lady had mushed the cat food had made Harry cringe.

_I really must be sick_ , he thought. _Maybe his curse is catching?_

He dropped his trousers, Snape watching him warily all the while, then slid his hands inside the waistband of his boxers.

Hesitating, he searched Snape’s face for the tell-tale signs of anger…

But there were none – Snape looked positively _bored_ – so Harry cautiously slipped his boxers off, letting them whisper down his legs.

His cock quivered against his stomach, seemingly torn between forbidden arousal and blank terror.

He stepped out of the snarl of fabric at his feet, wiped his clammy hands on his thighs and sat, hitching his t-shirt up above his taut stomach.

Snape regarded him coolly; blankly, as Harry fumbled awkwardly to settle himself (and his balls) comfortably on the wooden chair…

Harry picked up the jug; Snape slid closer.

Breath hitching in his throat, Harry spread his thighs, bit his lip… and poured the cream over his groin.

It was cold, that was his first realisation – his cock twitched unhappy and his balls seemed to contract inwards, trying to crawl up inside his body.

But then Snape’s eyes widened.

He skidded on all fours across the kitchen floor and paused, head on one side, watching the rivulets of cream trickling down over Harry’s balls.

Harry sucked in a breath.

_Don’t bite it off, please_ …

Snape opened his mouth, then, and Harry had a few desperate moments to think _oh well, if he bites it off at least I’ll be no worse off than I am now, although it’ll be embarrassing to bleed to death with my trousers round my ankles and cream all over my balls_ – before Snape lowered the flat of his tongue over Harry’s cock and _licked_ it.

Harry nearly levitated out of the chair in shock.

“Oh, no! I… _God_!” he growled, clawing at the table with his contorted fingers and clutching his chair urgently as Snape settled himself contentedly between Harry’s legs and started lapping at his cock, like a kitten.

Harry moaned; looking down at Snape licking carefully, _studiously_ at his groin, tongue chasing the last tantalising streams of cream, was overwhelmingly erotic. Harry shut his eyes against it, but Snape’s licks became longer; more experimental, as he sought out the last traces of cream.

There was no finesse (Harry had been on the receiving end of precious few blow jobs in his life), no applied pressure; just continuous, long, wet licking.

It was maddening.

Harry desperately wanted Snape to close his mouth around his cock, but he could hardly trust Snape to cover his sharp teeth… Harry moaned, loudly, and sank his fingers into Snape’s stringy hair.

Snape growled against his cock, making Harry shudder deliciously. He felt Snape about to pull back, satisfied that he had gathered up the last dregs, and picked up the cream jug again. Pouring it all over his cock again, it turned the skin a pure, milky white.

Snape, interest renewed afresh, lowered his head again, jamming Harry’s legs further apart and burying his face in the waterfall curtain of cream with a deep groan…

That was enough for Harry.

His cock pulsed; under Snape’s rough tongue, spunk spurted up against his stomach. Thick, straight globules of come streaked his t-shirt and trembling belly.

One pulse even made it up as far as his neck.

Snape, however, didn’t stop licking. There was cream in Snape’s hair, all over the floor, sashaying down the legs of the chair, matting the hairs on Harry’s thighs and balls ( _if I’m ever mad enough do this again, I’m shaving first_ , Harry thought, wearily).

He pulled Snape’s head away, accidentally trailing Snape’s creamy hair in the streaks of come.

Snape sniffed, apprehensively – then opened his mouth and began to lick experimentally at the glutinous white curls of spunk, as though expecting cream to spurt from Harry’s cock itself.

He made a face at the taste, however, and drew back, lip curled, then coughed a couple of times and trotted out of the room, leaving Harry destroyed in his chair, head thrown back and legs trembling.

Alone in the empty kitchen, he let out a low groan.

“Oh my God,” he whimpered, brokenly. “Happy Birthday Harry.”

~

“We know how hard it must be for you,” George said, the next day (Harry tried to hide his blush as he stood at the gate), “so we’ve brought our Quidditch kit. Fancy a game?”

Behind George, Ron and Ginny stood, clutching their broomsticks and staring petulantly at the grass. Hermione teetered anxiously in the background, enveloped in a large, translucent magical bubble.

Harry scowled when he saw it.

“Snape’d never hurt you,” he snapped, flinging the gate open viciously.

“It’s the baby we’re thinking of,” she replied, lowering her eyes. Ron reached out to squeeze her shoulder – but the bubble gave him a tiny electric shock, and he sprung back. Hermione rolled her eyes.

“Great double act, guys,” Harry snorted. “And it’s fine,” he added, glaring at Ron. “I’ve got better things to do than play games with people who’ve obviously been ordered round by their _mother_.”

Ron’s head snapped up.

“We’re here, aren’t we?” he demanded. “Open the bloody gate and stop being a git.”

~

Harry staggered over to Hermione, trailing his broomstick along the grass behind him. Up in the air, a phalanx of Weasleys whooped and soared, batting the Quaffle across the sky.

“Alright?” he smiled, glancing up at the house.

Snape glowered at him through the sitting room window.

Harry dreaded to think what state the house would be in later – Snape didn’t react well to being cooped up. But it was better than having Hermione talk to him through that awful bubble.

“Yes,” Hermione replied, pouring him a frosted glassful of lemonade. “Having fun?”

Harry dropped onto the grass thankfully.

“I’m unfit, I think. Ginny’s running rings round me. Imagine what Teddy’d be like!”

“You’ll have him over one day, when you’ve got Snape sorted,” Hermione soothed him. “Andromeda knows this.”

“Yeah,” Harry sighed. “Nice of you all to come out, thank Molly for me.”

“It wasn’t Molly’s idea,” Hermione whispered. “It was Ron’s.”

Harry’s eyes widened.

“He realised he was being a bit selfish. And, as your friends, it’s not our job to judge your decisions, just to support you,” Hermione said, low, watching the red-headed trio swooping above the trees.

Harry blinked back the moisture that threatened to bead in the corners of his eyes again.

“Thanks,” he murmured, staring down into his drink. “Means a lot.”

“How’s things going with Snape, generally?” Hermione asked, turning and fixing him with a knowing look. Harry realised he must have gone bright red, for Hermione blushed too, and looked away, flustered.

“He… er… is he being… inappropriate?” she stuttered.

_More like I’m being inappropriate_.

“Um, yeah…” Harry sighed, peeking back up toward the house again, but Snape was nowhere to be seen.

“Have… have you caught him… you know?” Hermione hissed.

Harry nodded, guiltily.

“It’s natural, I suppose,” Hermione considered, “although it must be disturbing for you, but –”

“It isn’t,” Harry snapped. “He’s my boyfriend. It isn’t disturbing at all.”

Then he realised he’d betrayed something, and flushed again.

“Has he… done anything?” Hermione whispered, eyes wide.

“No, but… do you think we _could_ , er, morally?” Harry asked, quietly. “Do you think it is okay if I and he…? I know Ron thinks it’s perverted, but he probably thinks anyone having sex with Snape is perverted anyway –”

“Probably,” Hermione said, awkwardly. “Harry… I don’t know how to advise you. He’s gone feral; he’s not himself. He’ll be acting purely on impulses, on instinct – if he did decide, when you were together, that he didn’t want sex, then surely you must respect his wishes?” she added.

“I do, more than anything!” Harry said, hotly. “But he was such a ball of problems, before. He wanted me, but he wouldn’t have sex with me for fear of betraying my mum! Now, he wants to – maybe it’s just him getting past his inhibitions –”

“Or maybe he’s forgotten who he is,” Hermione interrupted, low. “Maybe, if that’s the reason he wouldn’t touch you, you ought not to be with him in the first place –”

Harry snorted, sickened. He turned away, to find Ron and his siblings floating down towards them.

“Don’t tell Ron about it,” he hissed, trying to dredge up a smile as George dropped his bat and broom and made a beeline for the lemonade.

George’s Beater’s bat lay, forgotten, upon the wet grass.

 

**March 20th**

Harry wandered into the living room, scratching his balls lazily. It had been a long day of training and he’d just had a shower, dripping water all over the carpet like a tousled dog.

When he came out of the bedroom, Snape was sat in his chair, quivering silently, with his legs crossed impatiently.

The incriminating purple DVD sat on the coffee table in front of him.

Harry glanced at it, then bit his lip.

“Pornography,” Snape spat, his tone harsh and accusatory.

Harry folded his arms, embarrassment flaring in his cheeks, determined not to let Snape belittle him.

Not over this. It was just a DVD.

“So?” he shrugged.

“Getting our kicks elsewhere, are we?” Snape sneered, snatching up the DVD box and peering at the label. “‘ _Ripped and Rectal – more man action than you can possibly handle. Watch these tight-assed studs go_ ’ –”

“Yeah, we get the point,” Harry snapped, squirming. “It’s gay porn, what’s wrong – feel intimidated? You haven’t even _found_ the dildo yet.”

“ _What?_ ” Snape growled, horrified.

“I’m joking!” Harry tried to laugh, but the giggle withered and crumbled to ash on its way out of his throat.

“I thought you said you were going to wait for me,” Snape snarled.

“I _am waiting_!” Harry yelled back. “This,” he gestured to the purple box, “is me near to _brimming over_ with waiting – and not in the sense that I’m going to explode and shag somebody else, either,” he added, as Snape opened his mouth. “I want you. _All_ of you. When you’re ready to share, hey, maybe we can watch it together…”

“I think not,” Snape said, nastily. “I am not into men in that way.”

“ _Then what the hell are you doing here?_ ” Harry screamed.

“I don’t kn - you have bewitched me!” Snape cried, accusingly. “You have bewitched me with your hope and your smiles and your love! You’re fucking beautiful and it makes me sick with desire –”

“Then take me,” Harry whispered, throatily; urgently. “Please.”

“I cannot!” Snape cried, kicking the box halfway across the room and storming out.

~

Getting drunk solves all problems, Harry decided, sprawled deliciously on the sofa in front of the tennis, his plastic cup halfway to his lips. He wasn’t sure who was winning; everything was a little… wavy. He downed the dregs in his cup and reached blindly out, fingertips groping, for the wine –

“Have I reduced you to this?” Snape asked, standing sombrely in the doorway, with his arms about himself.

“No!” Harry cried, lurching off the sofa and collapsing at Snape’s feet. “No, no, no –”

“Get up,” Snape snapped. “Let me put you to bed.”

“Take me to bed,” Harry corrected, grinning. “You mean _take_ me to bed.”

“I fear not,” Snape muttered, slipping his hands beneath Harry’s armpits and lifting him easily.

“You’re so sexy,” Harry slurred, slumping against Snape tenderly.

“You’re so drunk,” Snape snorted, collecting Harry into his arms and carrying him into the bedroom. He laid Harry upon the bed with a gentleness that seemed to surprise them both. Harry grasped the front of Snape’s shirt and pulled his face close.

“Why are you here?” he hissed, yanking at the fabric uselessly, gazing up into Snape’s wide eyes, breath warm on Snape’s face. “You can tell me. I’m so far gone I’ll not remember.”

Snape looked cautious. Then he sighed, and lowered his mouth hotly, sealing their lips tight, plunging his tongue into Harry’s slack mouth. Harry writhed beneath him, then parted his legs and allowed Snape to settle above him, Harry’s palms smoothing passionately over Snape’s strong back and broad shoulders –

“I am here,” Snape whispered, breaking the kiss long enough to blurt a few words before diving down again, “because I imagined you.”

“Explain,” Harry gasped.

“I imagined what you would – God! –” Snape broke off and buried his face in Harry's neck for a moment, speaking against Harry’s throat, mouth moving on Harry’s skin, “–what you would look like as my lover. How you would be for me. It was not something I had ever allowed myself to think before, and I was… intoxicated. The thought of you…” He bit Harry’s neck, softly. “I had never felt desire like that before.”

“Then why,” Harry moaned, “aren’t you inside me right now?”

“I… please don’t press me,” Snape groaned, feebly. “I am trying. I have much to… free myself from.”

“I know,” Harry whispered. “I can wait. I’ll wait as long as you need. But please try to… hurry.”

 

**August 14th**

Harry was sprawled on his back on the dry grass, an empty bottle of wine lying discarded and dribbling on the ground by his foot.

The wine glass hanging limply from his languorous fingers sloshed a generous helping of wine onto the thirsty grass too.

The sun beat down upon him, warm and startlingly bright; Harry chucked his glasses off and threw them away… somewhere, scrunching up his eyes.

With his eyes closed, he felt as though he were floating. Tongues of delicious golden light suckled at the exposed skin of his arms and feet, and his upturned face.

He pulled off his shirt, getting his arms stuck but eventually hauling it off and hurling it away across the grass. Warmth caressed his narrow chest, his shoulders, his concave stomach…

Harry ran his hands slowly across his chest and down over his sides, savouring the delectable heat that was prickling up moisture all across his skin.

He wondered, hazily, what the warmth of the sun would feel like on his balls…

Well, there was nobody around for miles, and Snape was off God-knew where ( _probably burying something_ , Harry thought)…

He unbuckled his belt and fumbled with his trousers and underpants, wriggling his bottom to get them off without sitting up, pumping his hips up into the air. He struggled his clothing down his legs and kicked it all off, falling back and spreading his legs, luxuriating in being drunk and warm and peaceful…

Something brushed against his balls.

A bug, no doubt, crawling out of grass.

Harry reached down and tugged idly at his burgeoning erection, squeezing it in his palm and tickling the slit with his fingertips, smearing the swell of fluid over the bulbous head of his cock. When he’d been little, he’d wondered if it were possible to shove things (gently) into the little hole… Not that he’d ever tried. (Up his arse, however… Now that was a different story. Damn Snape and his sexual repression; Harry felt like a tightly coiled spring.)

A fly landed scratchily on his inner thigh; he wiggled, scratching lazily at the strange bald skin there, naked after he had shaved off his pubic hair.

He lifted up his rapidly firming cock and let it slap down, bouncing against his belly.

“Mmmm,” he murmured, rolling his shoulders and arching his back, his legs falling open even wider.

He wished he had something to put in his mouth; he remembered his first time, in the Gryffindor dormitory. Ron was out, and Seamus and Dean were ribbing Harry over not realising he was gay sooner, and Harry had shyly offered to prove that he really was gay, if they were interested…

Harry had lain on his back, with his head hanging over the edge of the bed, whilst the two other boys had slowly took turns and sliding their cocks all the way down Harry’s open throat… It was when one of them had his cock all the way down Harry’s throat, deep, his balls crushed and squeezing against Harry’s chin, that Harry first thought about doing this to _Snape_ …

He lifted up his cock again – and the tip bumped into something.

Harry’s eyes flew open.

He could, to his shock, hazily make out Snape leaning over him, kneeling on the grass with his head only inches from Harry’s groin.

His dark hair brushed against Harry’s inner thighs again, as he bent his head and sniffed, inhaling deeply of the musky scent of Harry’s balls…

“Oh,” Harry moaned, softly, and felt around for his glasses. Slipping them onto his face, he looked down, to see Snape watching him intently, dark eyes like molten fire.

Harry propped himself up on his elbows and watched, eyes wide, as Snape bent his head again and inhaled deeply, seeming to savour the smell…

Guiltily, he scooted backwards a little – but Snape followed him on all fours, predatory, his eyes never leaving Harry’s face. Harry felt like a mouse caught in the paws of a starving cat, or a fly stuck in a spider’s web as the spider slowly made its way down towards him…

“You don’t want this,” Harry whispered. “You said no, before. You’re basically impotent, because of all the things that hold you back… Please remember – I’m not perfect, I don’t want to stop you, please don’t –”

Harry cautiously inched his hand down, slowly trying to cover his cock (which seemed unperturbed by the presence of a madman and bobbed up, excitedly). Snape’s breath ghosted over Harry’s groin and he winced at the pleasure, balls tightening.

His hand slowly slid over his crotch, like the moon eclipses the sun…

Snape glanced down, crossly – then lowered his face and batted Harry’s hand away _with his nose_ , his lips and chin brushing accidentally (but deliciously) over Harry’s heavy, leaking erection…

Harry’s eyes fluttered closed. He groaned – then sat up, blinking. Snape was regarding him very strangely. He put a hand on Harry’s chest and pushed him back down, then bent his head over Harry’s groin again and butted at Harry’s poor cock with his large nose.

Harry’s cock twitched excitedly. Snape did it again.

Harry wanted to die, it felt so good.

“Severus,” he groaned, “please. You’ll be so angry when you – ooooh!”

Snape stuck his hands up under Harry’s buttocks and lifted them so that he could lick all the way back to Harry’s tailbone, over his twitching arsehole.

Harry cried out as Snape’s rough tongue touched him there, before Snape began mouthing sloppily at the soft, crinkly skin of Harry’s balls.

He licked his way slowly, leisurely, up Harry’s hips and chest.

Harry clung to him, his head falling back, wrapping his legs around Snape’s back and holding onto him. _God_ , the feel of Snape’s naked skin – Harry had had no idea that being naked with another person could be so _soft_ , especially when it was Snape…

He stroked Snape’s strong back, lean shoulders and firm arse with his fingers, trying to touch as much of Snape as he could reach before it was taken away.

Snape’s own cock, thick and heavy, bumped against Harry’s hip as Snape knelt over him, sucking at Harry’s neck. Harry slid his hand round and under Snape’s hip – and grabbed the other man’s large erection, squeezing it in his fingers.

“Forgive me,” he almost sobbed. “I want you so much.”

Snape barked in surprise against Harry’s neck, squirming, and crawled off him. Harry cried out in loss, but Snape had scrambled up Harry’s body and tried to force his cock down Harry’s throat, jabbing his hips ruthlessly.

Harry opened his mouth and choked, bile rising in his throat, as he took Snape’s cock in as deep as he could manage and started to bob his head as Snape fucked his mouth frantically…

 

**April 11th**

“I need a test subject,” Snape mumbled one morning, as Harry crawled into bed, bleary-eyed after a night shift.

Harry clambered on top of him, grunted, buried his face in Snape’s neck, and fell asleep.

“To test what?” Harry asked, several hours later, sat in his boxers at the kitchen table with a cup of tea as Snape stared grumpily out of the window. “Had any commissions yet?”

“No,” Snape snapped, turning away from the glass in disgust.

“Well, what did you want to practice?” Harry asked, standing up, open and willing.

Snape stared at him.

“It doesn’t matter,” he snapped, suddenly, slumping down onto the sofa with none of his usual grace and stretching his legs out.

“You can use me,” Harry said, padding across the room and kneeling before Snape, between his legs. He placed his palms on Snape’s thighs and stroked, soothingly. “I don’t mind.”

Snape’s eyes widened at the double-entendre. He swallowed, thickly.

“I cannot… There is no way I can practice anything on you. You are too…” he trailed off, gazing down at Harry’s nearly-naked body with a slightly glazed expression.

Harry smiled up at him, shy and hopeful. His palms snaked inwards, kneading the supple flesh; headed for the centre of Snape’s body.

To Harry’s delight, far from recoiling, Snape spread his thighs, sinking deeper into the cushions.

Harry shuffled closer, transfixed.

“Too what?” he breathed, huskily.

“Too… ahhhh, _fuck_ ,” Snape groaned, as Harry’s fingers massaged gently over his groin.

Harry knelt before Snape, tentatively outlining the bulge in Snape’s trousers that was growing larger and more rigid by the minute. Snape closed his eyes, almost panting.

“God,” Harry whispered, his own underwear visibly tented, stroking in wonder; trying to work out exactly how large Snape’s cock was. “You’re _huge_ , aren’t you…”

Snape’s eyes fluttered open.

“I…” he moaned, mouth slack. Harry, a damp patch on the front of his boxers as his cock leaked in desperation, slithered up Snape’s supine body and straddled him, knees astride Snape’s hips.

He grabbed Snape’s face, unable to resist for a single moment longer. Cupping the older man’s jaw in his palms, he forced their mouths together.

Snape convulsed in his arms; his hands came up and seized Harry, scrabbling at his back, before grasping his buttocks in both hands and squeezing, hard.

Harry howled, and shoved his tongue deep into Snape’s mouth; Snape choked, pulling Harry roughly in against his body.

His cock, stiff as rock, dug violently into Harry’s inner thigh through the fabric of his trousers; his hands roamed desperately up and down Harry’s slender back, clawing at the muscle, pinching the skin.

“My body was made for you,” Harry moaned, ripping his mouth away from Snape’s to place little snapping bites along Snape’s jaw, “love me properly, please; physically. I need you.”

Snape shoved him off, as though Harry were white hot, and it was Harry, this time, that ran from the room in despair.

 

**August 21st**

Harry snuck into the garden. The cool night air caressed his heated skin; he wondered what it must feel like to be Severus, wild, naked and uninhibited. Free to follow wherever his desires led him, wanton and unbridled…

It had rained a lot during the day. Snape had spent the day inside, by the fire, licking cream from Harry’s fingertips; driving Harry to distraction.

Outside, the garden was a turmoil of mud, and Harry padded through it.

Suddenly, he stopped.

Stooping, he collected up a handful of sticky dark earth and looked hard at it.

He smeared the mud across his chest, sucking in a breath at how it felt; cool and gelatinous on his sweaty skin. He smeared it onto his cock as well, glancing about guiltily even though he knew there was nobody around for miles.

Then his eyes fell upon the Beater’s bat, lying innocuously on the damp grass…

It used to be common fodder in the boys’ dormitories; tales of various Slytherins (often Malfoy) who the Gryffindors were convinced liked to take the bats up the arse after Quidditch. One of their cruder bets had been ‘how many Snitches could Malfoy fit up his backside?’

But surely people didn’t _actually_ …

Harry had fantasised about it, several times. And, if he couldn’t have Snape…

He sat down on the grass. The bat was long and smooth; polished sleekly, and gorgeously fat…

Too fat, surely?

It’d never fit… Harry picked it up and laid it across his knees, rolling it over and over as though flattening out his legs with a rolling pin.

A pair of dark eyes watched him calculatingly from the bushes.

Harry tipped the bat up, so that the tip was just before his face. Perhaps, if it fit in his mouth… He stuck out his tongue and licked it, cautiously.

~

Harry bent over the tree trunk and positioned the thin handle of the bat awkwardly against his trembling arsehole.

He pressed down lightly, wincing as the ring of muscle tightened involuntarily.

The bat slid up his crack and threatened to drop on the grass – Harry grabbed it, and positioned it again, biting his lower lip in concentration.

He bore down again, and felt the hardness of it tentatively slip in.

The tender muscles quivered around it. Forcing his body to relax, he pushed outwards, as though he were sat on the toilet…

Something popped, and the bat handle slid inside. Harry froze, clenching his arse muscles around it experimentally, eyes wide, breath held…

He slid down a little more, breathing out slowly, lips pursed in an ‘ooo’, as though he were blowing out a candle. He felt full, almost painfully so, as his body tried to push the handle back out, unused to the strange intrusion.

Harry reached behind himself and started to twist the bat round, waggling it up and down and from side to side, widening his hole awkwardly as sweat pricked out all over his skin.

“Gah,” he groaned, sitting back on his haunches and feeling the bat slip in as far as it would go. He ground his hips in a circle then stood, carefully – gravity and his quivering muscles pulled the bat right out, dropping onto the grass, glistening.

Harry picked it up by the handle (it was warm, and moist, and smelled funny) and propped himself up on all fours, parting his thighs. He fumbled for his wand and cast the lubricating spell again, then chucked it away.

This time he placed the wide, fatter end of the bat against his loosened hole and, eyes screwed shut and teeth clenched, tried to push it inside…

At first, he was convinced it wouldn’t go – but then, to his shock, he felt that ‘pop’ again, and the hole opened, stretching around the wood almost impossibly tight!

Harry felt so stretched – he dreaded to think what his arsehole would look like once the bat came out. A trickle of sweat sashayed its way down his cheek; more sweat dripped off his forehead.

He sat up again, kneeling there and clenching his fists so hard that the nails dug into his palms as he bounced, carefully, deeper and deeper each time, pulling it out painfully slowly before sinking back onto it again…

He glanced down, panting, feeling impossibly full; so full he could feel it in his throat.

_Be so good to come on this_ , he thought, imagining how hard (and how pleasurably) his anal muscles would cramp around something of this size…

_God, I wish it was Snape_ …

How much was there in him? it was impossible to tell.

He put a finger on the bat at the point where it disappeared into his body, then raised himself up slowly, keeping the finger in place…  
Harry cried out as he bat popped out of him, and cried out again in surprise as he realised he’d taken about five inches of something _that thick_.

_Shit, I’m gonna be sore tomorrow_ …

He knelt forward again, onto his hands and knees, tugging at his cock almost viciously with one hand as he held the bat handle tightly with the other, pushing it inside again...

A low growl made him nearly jump out of his skin.

He turned, wide-eyed and sweaty, to find Snape crouched behind him, watching him with a predatory snarl twisting his lips.

_Fuck_ , Harry thought.

_Or rather, I’m so fucked_.

He froze, wanton and glistening, as Snape advanced, slowly.

Snape gripped the handle of the bat and just rammed it inside him – Harry screamed and thrashed about, writhing.

“Ow! Ow? Oh, oh _God_!” he cried, jolted forwards.

He clawed himself away so fast that the bat ( _thank God!_ ) shrank back out of him a little way – but he was still left crawling across the grass with the bat sticking out of his bottom. He squeezed desperately and it slopped out, thunking onto the grass, connected to his abused arsehole with a trail of sticky lube.

He turned, frightened, as Snape followed him, determination evident in the hard lines of his face and his coal black eyes – when Harry noticed how Snape’s own cock was stiff and purpling, he groaned.

“Se-Severus,” he choked out, “are… are you sure you want to –”

Snape seized him by the hips, pulled him back, crawled over him so that his chest was to Harry’s back… and plunged his large cock into Harry’s arse.

Harry, shoved face first into the dirt by Snape’s forceful thrust, wailed, and scratched at the ground, tearing up handfuls of grass and dirt in his sweaty palms.

“Oh my G… I… You _are_ sure,” he moaned. Then: “Fuck me, you’re so fucking amazing… aaaah!”

Snape thrust into him without mercy.

There was no hint of self-control, nor self-consciousness. He positioned his body over Harry’s and pumped his hips roughly, forcing his cock inside over and over, fast and hard.

Harry had never been fucked like this; never dreamt Snape would do it like this!

“Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!” Harry howled, as Snape pounded him ruthlessly. “God, oh Severus, I love you! Oh, oh…”

~

Harry stood naked in the shower, looking timidly at his body.

He slid his hands uncertainly down his chest, fingers outlining the bumps of his ribs through the skin – ribs that were now smudged with newly-budding bruises. He slid his hands a little lower, resting them for a moment on his stomach; noticing, for the first time, that he had the imprints of Snape’s _fingers_ on his bony hips, like a child’s finger-painting.

There was one place he did not dare look; he could still feel the burn, the hole Snape had left, inside of him. Still felt… _loose_ , down there…

It had been his first time, and Harry was quietly terrified lest he had gone too far. But _God_ , he had _wanted_ it; wanted Snape to do all those things to him, to climb inside him, to bite and to scratch, to leave marks on his body… Did that make him twisted, somehow, because he had wanted Snape like this?  
He stroked his beaten body gently.

~

Snape was eyeing them from behind a tree as Harry brought out drinks and food on a tray. It was a warm evening.

Hermione nipped to the loo whilst he laid out an immaculate cold apple tart dusted with cinnamon, and little pots of clotted cream.

He was overcompensating, and what was worse, it was obvious.

“Wow, mate,” Ron muttered, “you’ve not had much free time, then?”

Harry flushed, slipping a piece of tart onto a plate and handing it to Ron.

“Don’t really have much cause for making food look nice, these days,” he mumbled. “This is nice. Thanks for coming back.”

“I imagine he tears it to pieces as soon as look at it,” Ron nodded. “Harry, I wanted to… I’m really sorry about the barbecue. About hexing Snape.” Harry snorted in amusement and Ron chuckled, awkwardly. “And being… just generally a right git. It’s just, well, it’s hard, but that’s no excuse. He’s your choice and I’ve just got to accept it. You’ve coped so bravely with everything.”

“You’ve got the baby to worry about, too – it… it’s oky, I understand,” Harry said, shuffling his feet. In the next moment, Ron had discarded his plate and pulled Harry into an awkward, brotherly hug.

Harry brought his arms up to hug Ron back – and something collided with them, sending them sprawling across the grass.

“What – hey!” Harry cried, flapping about as Snape seized him by the hair and dragged him away, kicking.

Snape pulled Harry across the lawn and dumped him in a bush, then turned, snarling, to watch Ron staggering after them.

“Harry? You okay in there?” Ron called, rubbing his bruised arm as he hurried over. He halted, however, when Snape poked his head out of the bush and growled at him. “Whoa! Easy there, er, Professor…”

Snape’s head abruptly disappeared, leaving Ron alone, staring in confusion as the bush started to… _tremble_.

“Oh!” he heard Harry whimper – and drew his wand hastily.

“Harry?” he hissed, prising a branch away and peering in.

Harry was on his back in the dirt, his spine twisted awkwardly over the roots and branches snarling up the ground. Snape was atop him, his tongue in Harry’s mouth, his fingers plucking cruelly at the front of Harry’s shirt.

Ron’s gasp drowned out the sound of the cloth ripping as Snape tore the shirt open and lowered his face to bite at Harry’s bared chest. Harry lay there, gasping, head thrown back, fingers scrabbling at Snape’s back, bringing his legs up to wrap around Snape’s waist…

“Harry?” Ron whispered. Harry opened his eyes (his glasses askew on his face) and saw Ron – and paled.

“Shit,” he growled, trying to shove Snape off him, but Snape just brutally forced him down again and (to Harry’s horror) set his teeth to the fastenings of Harry’s jeans. “No!” Harry groaned. “Leave, oh no – Ron! Come back!”

“Not bloody likely!” Ron snapped, striding away across the lawn. Harry could hear him shout to Hermione that they were leaving as he struggled out from under Snape. Clawing his way out of the bush, he wobbled across the lawn, clutching the tattered pieces of his shirt together.

Hermione came running out of the house, in her bubble –

“What is it, what’s happened?” Then she saw Harry and stopped.

“ _He_ ,” Ron snapped, pointing accusingly at the garden, where Snape was petulantly emerging from the bushes. “He did… bloody hell, Harry! I’m trying to be accepting, but that’s too far!” he cried, unhappily.

Harry, bent over slightly, his bared chest heaving (and his undone trousers slowly succumbing to the pull of gravity), sucked in a breath.

“What do you want me to say?” he gasped. “He likes me. You know this. He obviously got jealous when _you_ hugged me and wanted to, I dunno, mark me as his, or something.”

“You didn’t exactly try to resist, did you?” Ron cried. “It makes one wonder what else you let him do!”

Harry’s guilty flush did nothing to cool Ron’s anger. Even Harry’s ears were red.

“Shut up, Ron,” Hermione said, suddenly. She was scrutinising Harry intensely. Ron opened his mouth to protest, but Hermione prodded him, giving him an electric jolt.

“You… you’ve let him, Harry?” she asked, carefully.

Harry nodded.

“But it’s like doing it with a dog!” Ron exclaimed. Hermione threw up her hands, cancelled the protective bubble charm, and thwacked him with her glove. “I mean, I’m really trying here, Harry, but I just can’t _understand_ how you can –”

“It’s not like he’s gone, you know,” Harry sniffed, struggling to retain his dignity with his clothes barely clinging to his body. “I think it’s a bit rich of people to judge – who the hell does it harm, anyway? How can I be taking advantage when I’m the one getting bugge –”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit desperate,” Ron interrupted, quickly, “to take whatever you can get? He doesn’t love you –”

“That depends on how you see him,” Harry said, voice gruff. “If you see him as a man, as my partner, who still wants to mate with me _and only me_ , then it’s not so disgusting as if you think of him as a filthy animal sticking its bits anywhere warm it can find!” he ended on a shout.

“We’re only concerned about you, Harry,” Ron said, reproachfully. “What if he hurts you?”

“You know what?” Harry hissed, snatching up his trousers (which were now snaking their way down his thighs) and clutching the ribbons of his shirt to his narrow chest, vibrating with anger and shame. “He’s fucking awesome in bed now and I love taking it up the arse from him more than anything in the world – so if he’s an animal then I’m an animal too! Go suck on that, _Ronald Weasley_!”

Harry stormed into the house, slamming the door, kicking his trousers off and dumping them on the floor.

Through the kitchen window, he watched Ron and Hermione hurriedly bustling towards the gate, under Snape’s hawk-like gaze. As they Apparated away, Harry turned and kicked the dresser, hard.

“Severus!” he bellowed. “Come screw me now – where are you?” he hurried through the house, shedding clothes as he went from room to room, hunting for his lover.

He looked out of the kitchen window – and froze, startled.

There, in the garden, beside the large hole that Harry was digging for his new fish pond, Snape was bent, naked, over one of the large piles of warm, damp earth.

He was lying on top of it, face to the ground, and appeared to be... fucking it.

Harry’s mouth fell open.

He pulled off his last sock and ran from the room, flying down the stairs two at a time. He stalked across the lawn, stark naked.

“What are you doing?” he whispered, intrigued.

Snape glanced up at him and paused, evidently weighing up the merits of continuing to fuck the warm earth, or switching to warm Harry…

To Harry’s delight, Snape rolled off the earth, his body (and especially his groin) smeared in soil and grass. He lunged at Harry, knocking him backwards, pinning him to the ground.

“Yes!” Harry cried, sinking his nails into Snape’s back and pulling Snape down atop him. “Come on, yes!”

They rolled around on the grass, kissing and biting each other, wrestling for dominance. Harry was all too happy to let Snape possess him; as Snape held him down, Harry writhed beneath him, his cock achingly stiff…

The next thing Harry knew, they had rolled into the empty fish pond.

~

The mud here was thick, wet, and oozing. As Harry tried to claw his way out, Snape, behind him, scooped up a fistful of mud and slapped it vigorously in between Harry’s arse cheeks.

“Eh?” Harry gasped, turning to peek over his own bare shoulder. “What are you – oh!” he groaned, throwing his head back as Snape started to push several of his dripping fingers into his filthy hole.

One, two, three, four – Harry clawed at the earth, convinced Snape was going to try to shove his whole _hand_ inside him.

Snape pulled out of Harry and pushed him further forward, so that he was bent with his face in the dirt and his arse in the air. Snape mounted him roughly, almost brutal, thrusting his cock inside with a snarl.

Harry howled as Snape began fucking him and licking his back; enjoying the long, slow scrape of that beautiful fat cock sliding in and out of his hole…

“Oh, God, _cock_ ,” Harry groaned, sticking three of his own muddy fingers into his mouth and slurping in them. “ _Severus_. Cock, I love it, oh…”

Snape’s balls slapped harshly against Harry’s arse as he seized Harry around the waist and humped into him, forcibly.

Harder and harder he thrust into Harry; Harry closed his eyes.

There was pain, yes, but more than that there was the incredible, invincible feeling of his lover, his first and only proper lover, taking him hard, loving him almost violently.

This was what Harry had fantasised about – all those weeks of living together, barely touching, Harry pent up beyond words…

Snape pulled out of him, and Harry moaned, miserably.

But then…

Snape clawed up another handful of soft mud and – to Harry’s surprise, and wicked delight – pushed it up into Harry’s abused hole.

Harry moaned; aroused beyond words by the full feeling that felt unnervingly like he needed to go to the loo; trying to stop his quivering body from pushing the mud back out again.

He failed a little, and his anus twitched, slopping mud out onto Snape’s feet.

The older man kicked Harry’s legs even further apart, lined up his cock at Harry’s mud-slicked entrance, and pushed back in with a growl.

Harry braced himself against the side of the dug-out pond, sinking his fingers, coated with a film intermingled of mud and sweat, into the soft earth. He felt the dirt crumble away around him. He turned his head.

“Oh! Oh, I’m an animal, God _yes_! Severus!” Harry howled.

~

Now they had started making love, Snape was just a beast.

Harry was kneeling on all fours, scrubbing the kitchen floor, naked. He knew he was being inflammatory, but he didn’t care. Nobody came by to visit anymore.

He _did_ have some warning, in that he heard Snape’s footsteps, but that was all. In the next moment, he was unceremoniously mounted from behind.

“Gah!” he groaned, slipping forwards on the wet tiles as Snape pushed his cock up Harry’s bottom. “You might give a man some warning, ughhh!”

~

The wizards who arrived at Harry’s gate the next morning were wearing red.

Harry had completely forgotten about the Auror programme. How was he supposed to return now, anyway? He could hardly leave Snape.

“Might we have a look at Mr Snape?” one of them asked, as Harry shepherded them up the path. “You are aware St. Shrivelling have been working on a cure, aren’t you? We have come for… information.”

“If you can find him,” Harry muttered. “He has the run of the garden. The wards were put up by myself and the new Headmistress of Hogwarts,” he added, at the shocked looks on their faces.

“Better get inside then,” one said, glancing about anxiously.

~

“We are here, at the request of St. Shrivelling, who, as you know, are currently researching a cure for Mr Snape’s affliction.”

Harry nodded. He had heard, once or twice, but nothing for a while now. Especially since their… break- out.

“It has been proposed that progress might advance faster if we knew the circumstances leading up to the actual… curse event. If we could have a look at Mr Potter’s memory of the attack -”

“Do we have to?” Harry chuckled, bitterly, sprawled lethargically in his chair. Then he sat up, sighing. “Alright. What’s a little bit of humiliation on top of everything? Go ahead.”

 

**April 17th **memory****

“Lift up your robe above your waist,” Snape commanded, as Harry padded into the bedroom, hunting for his trousers.

He was late for work and barely dressed, with his red robe slung casually about his bare, damp shoulders. Snape was sat up in bed, rumpled and cantankerous.

“ _What?_ ” Harry asked, owlishly, clutching a pair of socks, which he then dropped in his surprise.

“Lift your robe up, I wish to see you…” Snape paused, then coloured, his cheekbones burning red with shame as he dropped his gaze.

Harry let out a raucous guffaw.

“Severus, I’m _late_!”

“So?” Snape snapped. “Do it _now_.”

“Before you lose your nerve?” Harry sobered, his mirth crumbling fast. “What will happen once you have seen me naked?”

“I do not know,” Snape said, and his eyes glittered strangely as he regarded Harry. “That is what I hope to… discover.”

Harry’s breath caught in his chest. Very slowly and deliberately, he slid the red robe off his shoulders, baring his body to Snape for the first time. The fabric susurrated down Harry’s skin and pooled, lapping at his ankles.

Snape’s eyes widened. His lips parted in astonishment – had he expected a refusal?

“At least,” Harry said, wryly, glancing down at the firming erection that was pulling up towards his belly, “I can’t look like my mother now.”

He stood there, proud and strong, willing Snape to desire him enough to overwhelm whatever inhibitions kept them apart at night…

“No,” Snape said, low, not taking his molten gaze from Harry’s firm, masculine, slender body. “You are most definitely not your mother.”

They stared at each other. Snape had eyes of fire.

“You know that’s one of the most erotic things you’ve ever said to me,” Harry said, awkwardly. “Apart from ‘I keep you in the darkest corner of my heart.’ What does that mean? I wish you’d say.”

“Harry Potter,” Snape shook his head.

“No,” Harry said, coldly. “Don’t. Don’t put me on a pedestal or, or hide behind your old loathing, or worry what my parents would have thought, or… I don’t know, worry about corrupting me –”

“Do you think I’m corrupting you?” Snape interrupted.

“Not nearly as much as you ought to be!” Harry snapped back, not wanting to give Snape a new complex. “I don’t care whatever reason it is why you won’t be with me – I just want you to forget about it and give me a damn good rogering!”

“Put your clothes back on,” Snape spat, _Accio_ -ing Harry’s robe and throwing it at him. “Stupid child.”

“No!” Harry yelled, frustrated beyond words. “I’m so sick of this – I’m trying so hard to be understanding, but you can’t just order me to strip and then do nothing! I’ve only recently discovered I’m gay, for God’s sake, I’m just a big ball of _need_ , and you’re just a bloody tease!”

“I’m not doing this to agitate you,” Snape scowled. “What are you doing?”

“Am I so revolting – so repulsive to you?” Harry said, scrambling naked across the bed, even as Snape recoiled. “What’s wrong with me?”

“It isn’t you,” Snape growled. “Get away.”

“No!” Harry cried. “Remember our conversation – the one where you said you’d think again about us having children?”

“What does that have to do with – that is a long and complicated process – I would have to make a potion,” Snape interrupted.

“Even if you made the bloody potion, you’d still have to come within five yards of me for it to work –” Harry spat. “Are you impotent, is that it? Are you actually incapable of keeping it up, is that what this is, because we can work at that!”

“Do not presume to put words into my mouth,” Snape snarled.

Harry kissed him, roughly, clawing at Snape’s face.

Snape fumbled to get away, fingers like skittering spiders. He pushed the pillows over the edge of the bed in his haste, and a pile of papers splashed across the floor.

Dizzily, Harry pulled back.

“What are these?” he asked, leaning over the edge of the bed. Snape had frozen. Harry scanned the paper quickly, his brows knitting closer together with each sentence.

“If you say ‘Oh, Severus’ again, I swear,” Snape snarled, clearly wishing himself elsewhere. Harry looked up, his green eyes brimming with resentment.

“We _agreed_ on a compromise – nothing fatal, or with lasting damage, you said! You were supposed to be doing harmless curses because you lov – because you cared for me! These are inhuman – Severus, how can you live with me and yet harbour such thoughts in that head of yours?”

“Are you implying that I’m a monster?” Snape sneered back. “A beast?”

“What, like you’d be if this was cast upon you?” Harry screeched, fluttering the paper at him. “Do you have no morality, writing curses such as these?”

“That curse is harmless – here,” Snape snapped, snatching his wand up from the nightstand. “I can prove to you that I was abiding by your ridiculous rules.”

“Wait, Severus, no –”

“It’ll wear off in a matter of hours –” Snape scoffed.

“I don’t need you to –”

“I will not have you thinking me inconstant,” Snape said coldly, pointing his wand at himself and plucking the paper from Harry’s fingers.

“Wait!” Harry cried.

“ _Incohare Bestia!_ ”

****memory ends****

“So, it was a curse that he… created? And performed upon _himself_?” The Auror’s eyes were very wide.

Harry nodded.

“How do you feel about that?”

Harry scrubbed his hands over his face.

“I’m… angry, but… He did it for me. It’s not his fault it went wrong – I trust that he genuinely thought it wouldn’t cause such an awful... What are you saying – that he doesn’t love me, and he’s stuck like this?” Harry snarled.

“Then it’s not permanent? It’ll wear off?” the other Auror ventured. Harry sighed.

“Who knows? If only I saw some improvement, I could be more hopeful, but… he’s the same now as he was weeks ago. Will that be all, gentlemen?”

~

Two days later, they had their first storm.

A flash of lightening lit up the room for a moment, followed by the gurgling rumble of the thunder.

Snape hid under the table.

Harry shivered – then he remembered Hedwig II, stuck in her cage in the shed. Surely she’d hate the thunder – he must bring her inside. He usually kept her away from Snape but, perhaps, if he made sure she stayed in her cage…

~

Hedwig II puffed up her feathers huffily, ruffling water all over the floor. Harry fed her a treat, then wandered off to find Snape, who had disappeared; terrified, it seemed, by the rumbling of the thunder.

~

Harry trotted back down the stairs, confused. Surely Snape hadn’t gone outside?

It was then that he realised Hedwig’s open cage was in the fire.

He screamed, rushing round the table.

By the fire, Snape was crouched over Hedwig’s body, one hand at her tiny white neck. One of her wings flapped at an awful, broken angle.

Snape bared his teeth as he snarled down at the poor bird, her eyes wide and her tiny legs kicking helplessly.

“No!” Harry cried. “Not her, please! We have _enough_ to eat, please no!” Snape ignored him. “SEVERUS!” Harry wailed.

Snape’s head snapped up.

Their eyes met – Snape’s eyes widened.

Harry realised he was shaking.

“Kill me instead of her,” Harry sobbed, sinking to his knees, but Severus merely tightened his grip on the poor, terrified Hedwig. “Severus, no,” Harry whispered, brokenly. “Please don’t. If you have any of you left in there, please let her go. Please. For me. Anything!”

He gazed up, almost despairingly at Snape…

And something seemed to soften suddenly in Snape’s eyes, at the sight of Harry pleading brokenly before him…

He mutely released Hedwig, who squawked in terror and tried to fly away.

Harry caught her, gently, and bundled her out of the room in a tea towel.

~

“What does it mean, do you think, if I ask him not to kill my owl and he doesn’t? Do you think he’s recovering?” Harry asked Draco, when the little snot appeared at the gate that evening, basket of provisions in hand.

Draco appeared unfazed by the question. He merely sniggered, and passed Harry the basket.

“Trying to justify your nasty bestial sweaty time with Snape again, Potty?” he smirked. “You won’t manage it. We all think you’re a pervert. I’ve been asked to deliver this because your little friends think you’re creepy.”

“Fuck you,” Harry snarled, snatching the basket and stomping away.

“Shall I put on some doggy ears and a tail, first?” Draco called, after him. “I could yap a bit while we do it, if you want?”

~

Sleep was a long time coming.

Finally, hot and damp, Harry uncurled himself from the snoring Snape.

He padded about the house, nude in the moonlight, listlessly stroking odd tactile items, moving things tiny, inane distances.

He ended up in the loft, sitting amongst the dust motes that swirled in the wan, watery light of the early sunrise and opening the boxes of hastily packed items he’d brought from the flat.

They had packed Snape’s box, him and Hermione both, at arm's length, using their wands to levitate Snape’s personal items in. Even now, the collection of objects crackled with dark magic.

Harry upturned the box across the floor and watched them scatter.

A bottle bumped his foot; the frosted glass was unnaturally cold. Harry flinched. He nudged the bottle with his little toe, and it rolled over; the label became visible.

Harry stopped dead.

It couldn’t be…

Snape had made the potion? Snape had actually _made_ the pregnancy potion?

Hands trembling, Harry blundered to pick up the bottle. The glass stopper winked in the virgin light.

_M. Tribuo Vita_.

~

“Harry!” Hermione gasped. “He’s not in his right mind – how can you make a decision like that for him!”

“It’s not like he didn’t make it before – he _made_ the bloody potion,” Harry protested, awkwardly. He had been invited over to help with Hermione’s move to the Burrow, but people still looked at him strangely and it made him sick. “He wanted a family, he did it for me, because he lo –”

“You can’t use that argument, Harry,” Ginny snapped, standing crossly in the Burrow’s new nursery. “If he’d made a _suicide_ potion, would you assume he wanted to take it now and feed it to him?”

“No, but –”

“He’s not himself – for God’s sake, Harry, how can you expect him to be a father when all he wants is to eat, sleep, and have… you know…” Hermione trailed off, smirking. “I know that sounds like a typical man, but -”

“It’s still so funny that you can’t get him to put on clothes. He’d be mortified if he was himself,” Ginny grinned.

“I know,” Harry sighed. “Boy, don’t I know it. He can’t be a father in his condition, can he? How am I ever going to get him to be gentle with me now that… Sorry.” Harry blushed, as Ron looked ill. Harry wasn’t supposed to mention _that_.

“There’s not just that,” Ginny added, obviously ill at ease. “What would he be like with a baby? What if he decided it looked, erm, tasty…”

Harry was horrified.

“He’d _never_ hurt a child, he’s improving – Hermione, remember that time he realised you were pregnant?” Harry cried.

“I’m sorry, Harry, but if you think we’re bringing our child to visit Snape when it’s born then you’re completely loopy,” Ron said. Hermione linked her fingers with his.

“Harry, he’s right,” she said, “but you’ll always be welcome here –”

“Of course,” Ron snapped. “Just… without him.”

~

Harry stormed up the cobbled garden path, muttering darkly.

He stopped when he reached the lawn beside the house.

It was strewn with blood and feathers.

“Hedwig?” Harry whispered. His body had gone cold. “No…”

Snape, curled up on the grass, sunning himself unconcernedly, opened one eye.

“Is this Hedwig?” Harry demanded, charging across the lawn. “TELL ME, damn you!”

Snape flinched, then swatted at Harry as though he were a particularly irksome fly.

“God!” Harry cried, sinking onto the ground, in the midst of the carnage. “I’ve had enough – fuck everything. I want to be wild like you, then nothing would matter –” and he yanked off his shirt.

Snape lifted his head, interested, watching as Harry fumbled with his shoelaces and kicked his shoes away across the grass. He fiddled with his trousers before pulling them off, along with his boxers.

“Right,” Harry said, stark naked, and lunged at Snape.

~

Fucking outside, naked and exposed, feeling the breeze skittering over his skin and smelling the rich earth and the damp wood and the moss and the indolent, swollen scent of flowers… Harry threw back his head and groaned.

They were doing it doggy style, Harry bent over a fallen log and Snape entering him hard and fast from behind.

Harry’s skin was raw and seared-looking, and streaked with finger-shaped lines of soil.

There was dirt in his mouth, eyes, ears... They had no lube, so Harry had to keep pulling away and trying to spit on Snape’s dirty cock.

He ached deliciously; the golden sun beat down and slicked his skin with a sheen of sweat, which Snape kept licking away.

The fresh air made Harry feel ravenous and energised. He loved the roughness of the wood and the prickling of the grass, and the strong, powerful man at his back, holding his hips roughly and driving into him over and over and over…

~

Harry lay on his side, sprawled languorously. He was filthy, blissful, and exhausted. There was earth, leaves, and sweat in his hair; his body was scratched and bruised and sore.

It was paradise.

Snape lay behind him, pressed naked against Harry’s back. He had his nose in Harry’s hair, breathing Harry in and biting Harry’s neck softly as he pressed his palms to Harry’s torn skin and _groped_.

They stank, covered in come and blood and forest detritus, yet there was something liberating to Harry about putting his mouth on Snape’s soiled skin.

They had been living in the woods surrounding the cottage for a week now; Harry occasionally going inside to get food, which Snape fought him over. Harry often got nothing – until Snape would realise that he looked weak, and then hunt out some small animal and drop it at Harry’s feet.

Harry barely spoke; he whimpered and howled and barked and snarled along with his lover. If any other wild animal had wandered into the garden, Harry had no doubt that he and Snape were more than a match for fangs and sharp claws.

After eight days, Harry, so full of come that he _oozed_ it when he moved, fluid encrusted down the backs of his thighs, practically crawled inside, downed the pregnancy potion, and crawled back out again.

~

“Oh, _Harry_.”

The voice sounded so pitying, so disappointed, that Harry flinched, trying to bury his head in Snape’s strong back. Morning sunlight filtered down through the leaves and into their den of broken twigs.

“Harry, you look awful! _Harry_ –”

“Stay back, Hermione,” Ron whispered. “What if he’s been hit with the curse as well? What if he’s an animal too –”

“Nothing human lives here,” Harry murmured, and turned away. Beside him, Snape stirred.

“Harry,” came Hermione’s voice, again, “the Aurors are here. We’re _all_ here – Andromeda’s even brought little Teddy –”

“Leave us alone,” Harry groaned, opening his eyes briefly. Ginny was stood behind Ron and Hermione, looking like she wanted to cry.

“You’ve got blood on the back of your thig – oh,” Ron trailed off. “Come inside and clean up, yeah? You don’t want Teddy to see you looking like this.”

“I told you,” Harry snapped, “I’m a creature, just like Severus, I’m not –”

“They think they’ve found a cure,” Hermione said. “They contacted us because nobody could reach you. I can cure him.”

~

Half an hour later, Harry sat at the kitchen table, feeling strangely restricted in his shirt and trousers.

“Right,” Harry sighed. “What do we do?”

“The curse itself is feral,” Hermione informed him. “If we can force it out of his body, perhaps we can trap it somewhere else; in an animal or, for a short time, we brought this,” and she fished a green bottle out of her bag. “This will work.”

“If you’re sure, then let’s go and find him – better go and get Teddy from the other room, make sure he doesn’t get in the way,” Harry added, as they all stood up.

He had mixed emotions about the whole thing. Of course he wanted Severus back, but…

What if Snape left him, because they’d had sex?

It was then that Andromeda burst in.

“Have you guys got Teddy?” she cried. “He came in to see you!”

“No,” Harry said – and the faces around him turned ashen. “But he’ll be in here somewhere – it’s not like anybody left the door ope…”

They all glanced down the hallway.

Beyond the open door, the garden was lush and green in the soft morning sunlight.

~

“TEDDY!” Harry howled, sprinting across the grass, his friends fanning out behind him.

“TEDDY?” screamed Andromeda, from the house.

Ron and the trio of Aurors drew their wands, their faces grim.

“Put those away,” Harry snapped, stopping.

“No,” Ron sneered, “I’m sorry, Harry, but this is beyond you now. If that bastard has hurt Teddy, I swear I’ll kill him myself.”

“He wouldn’t – remember what Draco said about Hedwig? Harry asked Snape to spare her and he did – he has human compassion –” Ginny wailed.

“Hedwig’s dead,” Harry spat, whacking the bushes. “He eviscerated her last week. Either that, or she left, but she’s not here.”

“Oh God!” Hermione cried.

“Where do we look – where does he go?” one of the Aurors said, scouring the garden.

“I’m going to look in our den first,” Harry replied, and set off at a run.

~

As Harry tore through the bushes, he heard the scream, and fingers of ice enclosed his heart in a vice-like grip.

~

The entrance to their den was smeared with blood, red and sticky, like golden syrup.

Harry ripped his wand out of his jeans pocket, sickened, bile rising in his throat and an acrid, acidic taste flooding his mouth.

He could see Snape’s back, inside the den. Snape was bent over something, panting, his ribcage rising and falling heavily.

“OH MY GOD!” Ginny shrieked, stopping behind Harry and clutching at Harry’s arm, her fingernails sinking into Harry’s skin. “HE’S KILLED TEDDY!”

The stomping sound of footfalls came next, and the three Aurors burst from the bushes.

“He’s an animal! He must be destroyed!” cried one, raising his wand.

“EXPELLIARMUS!” Harry screamed, and the wand flew from the man’s hand, catapulting away into the bushes. “I killed Voldemort!” he yelled, spit flying from his mouth. “I’ll kill all of you before I let you get to him!”

Then something else happened.

~

The wolf lunged at Harry and pinned him to the ground before anybody had a chance to even blink.

~

At the sound of Harry’s scream, Snape whirled about. Eyes wild, mouth red with blood, he charged out of the den – revealing little Teddy, stunned and pale beneath him.

The blue-haired boy had been hidden behind Snape’s body and his face was covered in streaks of blood, as though Snape had been trying to lick him clean –

A spell burst from Snape’s fingers, making the wolf shriek – and lift its terrible sharp jaws from Harry’s bloody shoulder. Snape lunged at the wolf, teeth bared, face set into a mask of hatred and violence.

Muscles tensed, he pounced like a tiger, revealing a nasty claw-wound on his hip.

He collided with the wolf’s already bloody back – “It’s not Teddy’s blood!” Ginny cried – and sank his crooked teeth into the wolf’s flesh.

There was a hideous howling sound; Snape sank his fingers into the wolf’s back and ripped out handfuls of grey, matted fur. The wolf turned its head, wailing. It snapped at Snape’s arm, narrowly missing the Dark Mark.

Snape punched the animal in the head and hurled it bodily into the trees, tearing away after it.

Ginny gasped and dashed across the grass, crouching before the mouth of the den and snatching up Teddy, who burst into stormy tears when he saw her.

The Aurors were bent over Harry, casting hurried spells over the seeping wound in his shoulder as Harry gritted his teeth and shook.

Hermione and Ron came running over. Ron paled when he saw Ginny clutching Teddy to her, but Ginny shook her head.

“It’s not what you think! I think Snape saved him. There’s a wolf, it’s got Harry. I… I don’t know about Snape. He’s still fighting it.”

Howls and snarls came from the bushes – followed by a long whine.

Hermione pushed past Ginny, her wand in her hand.

“There?” she asked, the green bottle gripped tightly in her fingers.

As she made for the bushes, however, Snape and the wolf fell out; the wolf’s claws sunk cruelly into Snape’s back.

Ron grasped her by the arm and pulled her back, but Hermione forced him off, determination making hard lines in her pretty face.

“Harry,” Ron whispered, sinking down to his knees beside his best friend, who lay there, white and drawn. “Are you okay, mate?”

“I…is Severus…” Harry whispered.

“Somebody kill the wolf!” cried Ginny.

“No!” Hermione yelled, as the Aurors started to stand. “You might hit Snape!”

“Bugger Snape,” said one, and pointed his wand squarely at the two tussling beasts, an Unforgivable blossoming on his lips –

“Expelliarmus!” Ron yelled, stripping the man of his wand in an instant – and not a second too soon.

The Auror lunged for Ron angrily – but Ron held him off, wand out, face twisted into a snarl.

“ _No_ ,” Ron hissed, “Snape belongs to _Harry_. You hurt him, you go through _me_.”

“I’m going to try and transfer the spell into the wolf,” Hermione cried. “Everybody stand back and somebody kill the wolf if I’m successful!”

The Aurors shrank away – “Come _on_ , Ron,” yelled Ginny, as Ron hovered reluctantly by Harry’s side – as Hermione tried to aim her spell carefully, discarding the bottle onto the grass.

As she spoke the words, however, the wolf bit down hard on Snape’s wrist. Snape roared and plunged his fingers into the ground, scrambling away – towards Harry.

The spell burst from the tip of Hermione’s wand, shrieked across the lawn, and collided with Snape in a burst of yellow light.

Snape’s eyes flashed yellow – he let out a shriek and shuddered. The spell seeped from him in a torrent of orange mist, gushing into the first living being it found.

Snape found himself sprawled naked on the grass, bleeding, wounded, with Harry convulsing on the ground beside him in a puddle of orange light.

He turned to the wolf, opened his bleeding palm out calmly and said:

“Cruor.”

A ball of black magic crackled from Snape’s palm and enveloped the wolf in a fizzling cloud, a swarm of bees and pins.

The beast whined, and there was an echoing ‘snap’.

Then… silence.

The cloud dissipated, lowering the broken body of the animal almost tenderly down onto the bloodied grass.

“You’re back,” Ron said, staring at Snape.

“So it would seem,” Snape panted. He turned, almost in desperation, to look at Harry, who had sat up, turned his head… and was licking the blood studiously off his own shoulder.

 

 

**A few weeks later…**

“Hello,” Ron said, sullenly, standing at the gate with the familiar basket in his hand.

Snape plucked it sharply from his grip, lifted the lid with his spindly fingers, and peered inside.

“I asked for Treacle Tart,” he snapped, glowering at Ron over the gate. The young man refused to meet his gaze. “You know he’s a menace if he doesn’t have it – I’ll never get him to do anything.”

“ _Maybe_ ,” Ron growled back, still not looking at him, “I don’t like the way you reward him with it. He’s not a dog. He never made _you_ do tricks.”

“I do not make him do tricks,” Snape said, acidly. “It is a reward system for when he actually does something other than try to lick his own balls.”

Ron coloured, cursing.

“I’ve never seen him do that,” he mumbled.

“I am clearly training him well, then, aren’t I?” Snape sneered. Ron just shrugged, unhappily. Snape sighed. “Weasley, I have to see you once every three days; would you kindly make eye contact with me just _once_?”

“No,” Ron said, shuddering. “I’ve seen you naked. I’ll never recover. Hermione wanted me to tell you that she thinks she’s getting very close to, er, sorting it out. Just so you know. Could be any day now.”

There had been problems since Snape’s recovery.

Hermione had instantly attempted to remove the curse from Harry – into her bottle – but the curse had jumped immediately back into Snape.

Much to Hermione’s bewilderment, it refused to go into the bottle.

It also refused to transfer into any of the animals that they procured as potential hosts.

It would only, it seemed, transfer _between_ Snape and Harry.

Snape had been vocal in his preference – it was Potter’s turn. Who, after all, was more likely to find a cure, himself or Potter?

He had been reduced, however, to the role of carer, as Harry made a beeline for him at all times, having assumed the personality of a friendly, devoted dog. Ron thought it spoke volumes about their personalities – the same curse that turned Harry into a lovable, drooling ball of attentiveness, turned Snape violent and feral…

Just at that moment, there was a rustle in the bushes behind Snape, and Harry darted out, scrambling across the grass. He was dressed in a pair of (not exactly modest) red boxer shorts (Ron blanched and looked away when he realised he could see Harry’s shaved balls through the fabric), and a t-shirt that read ‘Quidditch is for brain-dead idiots.’

Ron scowled when he saw it.

“I wish you wouldn’t make him wear that,” he grumbled. “What’s the point?”

“Revenge,” Snape said, silkily. “For all those time he let me wander around stark-bollock-naked.”

“ _He’s_ not exactly dressed, is he?” Ron sniped, as Harry started trying to scramble over the gate excitedly to get at him.

“He’s decent,” Snape sniffed. “You _can_ come in, you know.”

Ron hesitantly opened the gate and slipped through – only to be bowled over when Harry launched himself at him like an eager puppy.

As Harry slobbered delightedly all over his face, Ron made a face and tried to push him off.

“Eww!” he whined. In the next moment, Snape had seized Harry by the collar of his shirt and hauled him backwards.

“Sit,” he snapped, and Harry folded his own limbs obediently into a neat heap at Snape’s feet. Ron sat up, grimacing.

“How did you get him to do that?”

“As I explained; punishment and reward,” Snape smirked. “Good boy,” he added, petting Harry’s hair. Harry made a happy purring noise and closed his eyes, nuzzling at Snape’s hand with his upturned face. Ron looked like he was going to be sick.

“I’d better be off,” he muttered, clambering up. “I’ll be back on Wednesday. Make sure you take care of him,” he said, threateningly.

Snape merely rolled his eyes and stalked off.

“Come, Harry!” he called, and Harry crawled off after him, his feet sliding in the wet grass.

“And make sure you give him some more clothes!” Ron called, after him.

“He always wears clothes, Weasley, what do you think I am, an animal?” Snape snapped back, over his shoulder.

~

Once inside the cottage, Snape quickly moved from room to room, drawing all the curtains across. In the semi darkness, he felt his way towards the sofa, settled himself into it, then lit the living room fire.

Harry appeared in the doorway, curious. He trotted into the room, watching Snape, who patted the cushion next to him for Harry to hop up.

“Come here,” Snape growled. Harry curled up on the cushion, his head resting on Snape’s thigh. “Good boy,” Snape repeated, slipping his fingers into Harry’s messy hair.

With his free hand, he felt for his wand – then banished Harry’s clothes.

Harry wriggled happily.

“Much better, hmm?” smirked Snape, fingers drifting lazily to the zip of his dark trousers.

Savouring the moment, he let his fingers slide from there and over Harry’s golden skin, as Harry turned his face, and nuzzled Snape’s groin.

“You don’t need cream to suck me, do you?” he smirked. “Randy little thing.”

Harry purred. _He_ seemed to like having his hair stroked.

“I still cannot believe you did that to me,” Snape said, suddenly. “I remember everything. The things I did… the things _you_ did,” he added, glaring down at Harry reprovingly as the young man distracted him by mouthing at his cock. “Your friends have seen us; I have degraded myself utterly. Lily would be ashamed of us. Of _me_.”

Harry didn’t seem to care.

“Nevertheless… I find myself… unwilling to stop,” Snape admitted, sliding his hand around to the back of Harry’s head and pushing Harry’s face deeper into his groin, where Harry snuffled contentedly. “Perhaps that curse going so wrong will be ultimately… beneficial… Good boy,” Snape added. “You can have your special reward now, if you like.”

He unzipped his flies and gently guided Harry’s enthusiastic face to his cock.

“Good boy; beautiful, wonderful boy,” Snape groaned, as Harry began to slurp joyfully.

He didn’t see Harry’s eyes flash yellow, but Harry decided fast, around his mouthful of cock, that he’d rather wait until later to tell Snape he was cured.

Plus, he had the rather awkward matter of his possible pregnancy to discuss…

But there were more pleasurable things to attend to at that moment.

 

**FIN**

The poem containing ‘the darkest corner of my heart’ is ‘To a Madonna’, by Charles Baudelaire.

  
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